The Philosophy of Copyright.doc

2008

Copyright, broadly defined, is a legal form of proprietary ownership of authored works, including literary, pictorial, musical, and selected other intellectual kinds. Ideally, one who is familiar with the law should know whether something they have created is protected by copyright (and to what extent), and whether some action they take will infringe a copyright. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Rather, established copyright law gives rise to a host of problems, including legal decisions and established doctrines that are alternatively arbitrary, counterintuitive, and contradictory. My central argument is that these problems arise from a failure in copyright law to recognize the nature of its objects, authored works, and that a coherent and stable approach to copyright must be built upon such an understanding. To this end, I outline an ontology of authored works suitable for grounding both the legal and ethical domains of copyright. Centrally, I contend, a reasonable understanding of copyright depends on grasping four composite dimensions of authored works: their atomic dimension-the parts of which they are composed, and the selection and arrangement of these parts; their causal

2004

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

Copyright laws throughout the world are copyright holder centric and present a very fragmented source to comprehend the rights of users, and in particular of consumers owning copies of copyrighted works. Although in recent years, a growing number of commentators have worked towards defining the place of users in copyright law, little attention has been devoted to the nature and justifications of copy ownership of copyrighted works. This paper applies property and copyright theory to define and justify the existence of copy ownership of copyrighted works. It seeks to carve out in clearer terms the place of copy ownership legally and normatively, to offer a counterbalance to a predominant copyright holder centric approach to copyright law. Part One of this paper lays the theoretical framework of property and copyright theory. Part Two applies the theoretical framework to define the nature of the copy of a copyrighted works, as well as its justifications. It explores the ramifications of copyright acting as a property limitation rule to copy ownership, and how copy ownership can also act as a property-limitation rule of copyright. A travers le monde, les lois sur le droit d'auteur sont centrées sur les détenteurs de ces droits et présentent donc une façon très fragmentée de concevoir les droits des utilisateurs et, plus particulièrement, des consommateurs qui possèdent des exemplaires d'oeuvres protégées par le droit d'auteur. Récemment, un nombre grandissant de commentateurs cherchent à mieux définir le statut des utilisateurs relativement au droit d'auteur, mais peu se sont penchés sur la nature et les justifications de la propriété d'exemplaires d'oeuvres protégées par le droit d'auteur. Dans cet article, l'auteure applique les théories de la propriété et du droit d'auteur pour définir et justifier le droit de propriété d'exemplaires d'oeuvres protégées par le droit d'auteur. Elle cherche à mieux comprendre la propriété d'exemplaires d'oeuvres protégées par le droit d'auteur, des points de vue juridique et normatif. Elle cherche aussi à présenter une approche différente de celle qui * B.C.L., LL.B. (McGill), LL.M. (K.U. Leuven) Ph.D (candidate) Osgoode Hall Law School, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. A shorter and earlier version of this paper was one of the winning entries of Canada's IP Writing Challenge award in October 2010. I thank Osgoode Hall Law School and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for making this research project possible. I also thank Giuseppina D'Agostino, Lisa Austin, Abraham Drassinower, Colin Grey and Hiram Melendez-Juarbe, as well as the participants of the ATLAS Agora doctoral seminar held in June 2010 at New York University School of Law, for insightful discussions or comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All errors remain mine.

Book History, 2013

A brief overview of the history of copyright should provide cardinal points for newcomers to use in navigating this relatively new interdisciplinary field. Copyright law is not coincident with the introduction of printing, but rather emerges at the beginning of the eighteenth century as a tool for governments to use to limit the power of print monopolies. In early modern Europe, monarchs regulated the print trades through prepublication censorship and monopoly grants or "privileges" designed to align the technology of print with state interests. The first copyright law, the British Statute of Anne (1710), marks the beginning of a transition from royal privileges to commercial rights and a shift from a patronage system to a market for books. The Statute of Anne separated literary property from censorship, granting authors

Martin Luther Law Journal, 2014

When one discusses about the meaning of copyright, they mostly referred to the right to copy the work by the owner of such artistic and literally work, but not for any other user of such work. And some they mostly regarded it as the exclusive economic rights of the owner of the work. The purpose of this paper is to try to look at the various legal definitions of what copyright means through looking at the different authors of various books, to see whether these definitions have encompasses all aspects as to what is real amount to copyright. The aspect of Copyright is widely and extensively discussed in most of Intellectual Property and Information, communication and Technology Law texts.

2014

One of the most difficult issues for educators, scholars, and students, when faced with a copyright problem, is simply knowing where to begin-which parts of the legal rules and doctrines apply to the specific problem? To deal with this uncertainty, we suggest working through the following five questions, in the order they are presented. They are simple questions, but they are not easy to answer; by working through them in order, it is possible to identify which of the parts of copyright law apply to the specific problem that you need to address. Licensed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA 4.0). Adapted by the Center for Advancement of Digital Scholarship, K-State Libraries.

Socialism and Democracy, 2018

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016

context of architectural works, distinguishing between expression and idea is a question of law for the court, not a question of fact for the jury (one judge dissenting) Functionality

2012

Contemporary Intellectual Property

This chapter considers the evolution of modern copyright law against the background of its historical development in the UK and the international and European legal frameworks within which UK copyright law has been increasingly set since the nineteenth century. It examines the rationale and justifications for copyright and identifies the general policy context within which law and policy has developed in the UK and the EU. It also highlights the rapid development of new technologies which has brought copyright reform to the forefront in recent times, the difficulties which this new environment presents for the copyright framework, and how the framework has developed to such challenges.