I recently received a recommendation to read two speeches by Thomas McCauley in 1841 and 1842. These speeches were given to the British House of Commons as argument against a proposal to increase copyright duration to the life of the author plus 60 years. It seems that McCauley had considered all of the issues of intellectual property under discussion today and argued compellingly against this change.
The language is a bit archaic and the font really needs help. It's still worth reading:
We must betake ourselves to copyright, be the inconveniences of copyright what they may. Those inconveniences, in truth, are neither few nor small. Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. My honourable and learned friend talks very contemptuously of those who are led away by the theory that monopoly makes things dear. .... I believe, Sir, that I may with safety take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. .... It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.