Law Commons^™

Rights, Privileges, And Access To Information, Alina Ng

Journal Articles

Protecting property rights in creative works represents a classic institutional approach to the specific economic problems of nonrivalness and non-excludability of information. By providing the copyright owner with an enforceable right against non-paying members of society, copyright laws encourage the production and dissemination of literary and artistic works to society for educational purposes. Implicit in the grant of property rights is the assumption that commercial incentives foster creative activity and productivity. In recent years, literary and artistic works have increasingly become the subject matter of exclusive property rights and control, particularly as emerging technologies provide users of creative works with …