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Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Abstract

From many sources we have inherited a rich panoply of images about the "good author." The prevalent image of the good author as a unique individual who deserves a right in the works he creates and recognition for his contribution to the common stock of knowledge, occupies contemporary legal scholarship on copyright. Scholars argue that the law privileges owners with entitlements incompatible with the social nature of the creative act, and in this way disturbs the expectation that copyright law will "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." In their arguments they claim that authorship is less an exclusive manifestation of the author's genius and personal vision, but rather a social construct, a synthesis of prior texts and cultural influences. However, in their attempts to articulate such a perspective, they offer a narrow definition of the creative process as collaborative and social, emphasizing the interaction between authors and other creative beings and the role of external environments in the creative process.

This definition fails to capture the inner construction of and processes taking place within, the authorial self as opposed to its relationship to outer influences. This Article argues that scholars and the courts have been unaware of this fundamental aspect that defines and affects the social reality of creativity. The Article aims to remedy this lack of awareness. It articulates an innovative approach to copyright by introducing into copyright jurisprudence the seminal Dialogical Self Theory (DST), familiar from contemporary psychological inquiries into the self and the multivoiced imperative. Throughout the discussion, the Article examines the potential effect of its main argument on the construction of ownership models in intellectual property.

Disciplines

Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law | Intellectual Property Law | Law

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