Do utilitarians support intellectual proprty rights?
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Intellectual property is generally characterized as non-physical property that is the product of original thought. Typically, rights do not surround the abstract non-physical entity; rather, intellectual property rights surround the control of physical manifestations or expressions of ideas. Intellectual property law protects a content-creator's interest in her ideas by assigning and enforcing legal rights to produce and control physical instantiations of those ideas.
Legal protections for intellectual property have a rich history that stretches back to ancient Greece and before. As different legal systems matured in protecting intellectual works, there was a refinement of what was being protected within different areas. Over the same period several strands of moral justification for intellectual property were offered: namely, personality-based, utilitarian, and Lockean. Finally, there have been numerous critics of intellectual property and systems of intellectual property protection. This essay will discuss all of these topics, focusing on Anglo-American and European legal and moral conceptions of intellectual property.
1. History of Intellectual Property
2. The Domain of Intellectual Property
2.1 Copyright
2.2 The Creative Commons, Copyleft, and Licensing
2.3 Patents
2.4 Trade Secret
2.5 Trademark
2.6 Protecting Mere Ideas
2.7 Droits Morals: Continental Systems of Intellectual Property
3. Justifications and Critiques
3.1 Personality-Based Justifications of Intellectual Property
3.2 The Utilitarian Incentives-Based Argument for Intellectual Property
3.3 Lockean Justifications of Intellectual Property
4. General Critiques of Intellectual Property
4.1 Information is Not Property
4.2 Information is Non-Rivalrous
4.3 Information Wants to be Free
4.4 The Free Speech Argument against Intellectual Property
4.5 The Social Nature of Information Argument
4.6 The Cost of Publishing Digital Information
Bibliography
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
Legal protections for intellectual property have a rich history that stretches back to ancient Greece and before. As different legal systems matured in protecting intellectual works, there was a refinement of what was being protected within different areas. Over the same period several strands of moral justification for intellectual property were offered: namely, personality-based, utilitarian, and Lockean. Finally, there have been numerous critics of intellectual property and systems of intellectual property protection. This essay will discuss all of these topics, focusing on Anglo-American and European legal and moral conceptions of intellectual property.
1. History of Intellectual Property
2. The Domain of Intellectual Property
2.1 Copyright
2.2 The Creative Commons, Copyleft, and Licensing
2.3 Patents
2.4 Trade Secret
2.5 Trademark
2.6 Protecting Mere Ideas
2.7 Droits Morals: Continental Systems of Intellectual Property
3. Justifications and Critiques
3.1 Personality-Based Justifications of Intellectual Property
3.2 The Utilitarian Incentives-Based Argument for Intellectual Property
3.3 Lockean Justifications of Intellectual Property
4. General Critiques of Intellectual Property
4.1 Information is Not Property
4.2 Information is Non-Rivalrous
4.3 Information Wants to be Free
4.4 The Free Speech Argument against Intellectual Property
4.5 The Social Nature of Information Argument
4.6 The Cost of Publishing Digital Information
Bibliography
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
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