Law Commons^™

The Role Of The Author In Copyright, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Two encroachments, one long-standing, the other a product of the digital era, cramp the author’s place in copyright today. First, most authors lack bargaining power; the real economic actors in the copyright system have long been the publishers and other exploiters to whom authors cede their rights. These actors may advance the figure of the author for the moral luster it lends their appeals to lawmakers, but then may promptly despoil the creators of whatever increased protections they may have garnered. Second, the advent of new technologies of creation and dissemination of works of authorship not only threatens traditional revenue …