Law Commons^™

The Heart Of The Matter: The Property Right Conferred By Copyright, Douglas Y'Barbo

Mercer Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to offer a single coherent model that explains copyright law's essential features and to apply the model to reconcile the apparently disparate infringement decisions that comprise contemporary copyright law.

The fundamental premise underlying copyright law-and the one that I intend to dislodge-is that a copyright is a limited property right in relation to the author's original text. The thesis of this Article is that a "copyright" is not an enforceable property right in relation to a particular work of authorship or the expression embodied in it (i.e., "a text"). Instead, I shall demonstrate that …