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A Tale Of Two Copyrights: Literary Property In Revolutionary France And America, Jane C. Ginsburg
A Tale Of Two Copyrights: Literary Property In Revolutionary France And America, Jane C. Ginsburg
Faculty Scholarship
The French and U.S. copyright systems are well known as opposites. The product of the French Revolution, French copyright law is said to enshrine the author: exclusive rights flow from one's (preferred) status as a creator. For example, a leading French copyright scholar states that one of the "fundamental ideas" of the revolutionary copyright laws is the principle that "an exclusive right is conferred on authors because their property is the most justified since it flows from their intellectual creation." By contrast, the U.S. Constitution's copyright clause, echoing the English Statute of Anne, makes the public's interest equal, if not …
Wealth And Property, Thomas W. Merrill
Wealth And Property, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Stephen Munzer's study of property rights is an ambitious work. Drawing on sources as diverse as Hohfeld, Hegel, Locke, civic republicanism, Marx, the classic utilitarians, and Rawls, he seeks to develop a "pluralist" theory of property, one that synthesizes a variety of philosophical perspectives into a single "basic theory" that can be used to assess and promote the reform of different property systems. Like most attempts to achieve a grand philosophical synthesis, however, this one ultimately fails. The most obvious problem is that Munzer's basic theory is too vague and unwieldy to generate determinate answers to the kinds of …