CASEUF

What is intellectual property? Can authors own their ideas? Are pirates heroes or criminals? What are the commons, and can anyone govern them? The answers to these questions are contested and have changed over time. This course interrogates notions of piracy, the commons, and ownership as they have been applied in law, public debate, business, and politics.

Since their emergence during the early modern period, intellectual property rights have evolved into three main types: copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Questions emerged during this development: Should authors enjoy moral rights to their ideas, or should anyone be free to copy inventions and bring them to the market? Are patents positive or negative for innovation policies?

Since the nineteenth century governments increasingly started to harmonize national regimes of property rights as well. This eventually culminated in the creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization, in 1967, as part of the United Nations. The central question that arose then was about the dynamics between the West and the so-called developing countries. Were technologically developed countries trying to impose their legal system and trade regime on the rest of the world? And what place was left for the commons?

Such questions are often predicated on competing and conflicting views of what constitutes an inventor or artist. Using cases from literature, design and the visual arts, the music business, we will examine tensions over intellectual property during this course.