Academic

Pila on Copyright & Categories of Expressive Works

By Lawrence Solum

Justine Pila (University of Oxford - Faculty of Law) has posted Copyright and its Categories of Expressive Works on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

The focus of this paper is the statutory categories of expressive (literary, dramatic, musical and artistic (LDMA)) works in which copyright subsists. My argument is that the Legislature's division of protected works into categories is appropriate given the psychology of art appreciation, and the fact that in order to perceive a work qua work one must perceive it in relation to a category of work. Nonetheless, I also argue that the statutory definitions of LDMA works suffer from the defects of formalist theory. Those defects are outlined, and an alternative theory of works proposed, drawing on the work of art theorist Kendall Walton and the intentional, historical view of the work outlined in a recent paper (Justine Pila, 'An Intentional View of the Copyright Work' (2008) 71 The Modern Law Review 535-558). According to that theory, LDMA works are constituted in part by their properties of form and in part by the history of their individual production. Consistent with this, the statutory categories of work are cast as denoting authorial traditions: evolving practices of LDMA expression that exist and are experienced in a particular social context. In addition to its explanatory and normative value for copyright, this theory has important implications for the Legislature's expression of the categories of work in which UK copyright currently subsists.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on July 21, 2008 (boomark / email).