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Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

1993

Intellectual Property Law

Faculty Scholarship

Chattel right

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Conflicts Of Copyright Ownership Between Authors And Owners Of Original Artworks: An Essay In Comparative And International Private Law, Jane C. Ginsburg Jan 1993

Conflicts Of Copyright Ownership Between Authors And Owners Of Original Artworks: An Essay In Comparative And International Private Law, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Most, if not all, copyright laws distinguish between ownership of the incorporeal copyright, and ownership of chattels. A generally-accepted corollary holds that alienation of the chattel that constitutes the material form of a copyrighted work does not carry the copyright with it. Applying this principle to works of the visual arts, it should be clear that sale of a painting, even if it is the only "copy" of a work, is not a transfer of the exclusive rights under copyright to reproduce the work or to create derivative works based on the painting. Similarly, ownership of the copyright confers no …