The latest issue of Theoretical Inquiries in Law has several interesting pieces on the theme “Copyright Culture, Copyright History,” including:
Copyrights as Incentives: Did We Just Imagine That?
Diane Leenheer Zimmerman
Abstract
The most widely accepted explanation of why we need copyright is that it provides authors with the necessary economic incentive to create. This incentive story has largely gone unchallenged, and has been used to justify lengthening and strengthening the legal protections for expressive works. This Article points out, however, that the empirical foundation for the copyright-as-incentive story is seriously suspect. It fails to account for the economic conditions under which most art, literature and other expressive works are produced, and it contravenes the insights provided over the last forty years or so by psychologists interested in creativity and by behavioral economists. Empirical research has shown that intrinsic factors are much more important determinants of participation in creative work than such extrinsic ones as monetary reward. In fact, evidence exists that the promise of extrinsic rewards such as money can actually be detrimental to the creative impulse. This is not to say that concern with economic rewards should play no role in a legal regime designed to encourage the creative process. But, at a minimum, this Article suggests both that copyright scholars (and possibly patent ones as well) need to develop a far more nuanced understanding of why people produce what they do, and that a satisfactory legal regime to promote intellectual property creation and dissemination can afford to be far less concerned than it presently is with ensuring that authors and copyright owners can extract every bit of available profit from their works.
Recommended Citation
Zimmerman, Diane Leenheer (2011) “Copyrights as Incentives: Did We Just Imagine That?,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law: Vol. 12 : No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/til/default/vol12/iss1/art3
and
Bollywood/Hollywood
Madhavi Sunder
Abstract
Free flow of culture is not always fair flow of culture. A recent spate of copyright suits by Hollywood against Bollywood accuses the latter of ruthlessly copying movie themes and scenes from America. But claims of cultural appropriation go far back, and travel in multiple directions. The revered American director, Steven Spielberg, has been accused of copying the idea for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial from legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s 1962 script, The Alien. Disney’s The Lion King bears striking similarities to Osamu Tezuka’s Japanese anime series, Kimba the White Lion. Neither Ray nor Tezuka’s studio sued the American filmmakers and this Article is by no means an attempt to revive any particular legal case. Rather, this Article considers copyright’s role in promoting free cultural exchange, albeit on fair terms in a global marketplace of ideas marked by sharp differentials in power, wealth, and knowledge.
Recommended Citation
Sunder, Madhavi (2011) “Bollywood/Hollywood,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law: Vol. 12 : No. 1, Article 10.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/til/default/vol12/iss1/art10
The full contents of this issue is:
Copyright Culture, Copyright History
Introduction
Maurizio Borghi
Copyrights as Incentives: Did We Just Imagine That?
Diane Leenheer Zimmerman
Avihay Dorfman and Assaf Jacob
Brad Sherman
Copyright and Social Movements in Late Nineteenth-Century America
Steven Wilf
Lionel Bently
Hebrew Authors and English Copyright Law in Mandate Palestine
Michael D. Birnhack
Is Copyright Property? — The Debate in Jewish Law
Neil W. Netanel and David Nimmer
Madhavi Sunder
Tailoring Copyright to Social Production
Niva Elkin-Koren
Global Intellectual Property Governance (Under Construction)
Margaret Chon
An Old-Fashioned View of the Nature of Law
James Boyd White
You must log in to post a comment. Log in now.