Art and Design Commons^™

The Aesthetics Of Copyright Adjudication, Glen Cheng

Glen Cheng

The American legal system is unable to continue avoiding the question of art versus non-art. In particular, questions of copyrightability often hinge on art-status. Yet art is a constantly evolving, reflexive field in which artists and philosophers continually challenge the status quo. Judges would benefit from analyzing claims to art-status under the objectivity provided by well-developed aesthetic theories, aided by expert testimony when needed. After reviewing several major philosophies of art, this article proposes a framework for adjudicating art-status based on an aesthetic theory known as the Historical Definition of Art. Furthermore, to balance copyright law's purpose of protecting innovation …