Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

(at least) four (imperfect yet useful) overarching theories ofintellectual property.11Economic/utilitarian theory: intellectual property law isjustified in terms of economic efficiency.12Lockean/labor desert: intellectual property rights arenatural rights earned through adding labor to thecommon resource of information with the proviso thatenough and as good is left for others.13Personhood: intellectual property is an emanation of theperson and the law should facilitate this personalaspect.14Social planning: intellectual property law should bedesigned to culturally enrich democratic society.15Economic RightsArguably, the guiding premise of American copyright and(1990) (defining the public domain as the realm unprotected by copyright).11. William Fisher, Theories of Intellectual Property, in New Essays in the Legaland Political Theory of Property, 169-73 (Stephen R. Munzer ed., 2001); see also AnneFitzgerald, Intellectual Property 7-9 (Law Book Co., Sydney 1999); Robert P. Merges etal., Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age 1-21 (2d ed. 2000); JustinHughes, The Philosophy of Intellectual Property, 77 Geo. L.J. 287, 288-89 (1988).12. See, e.g., Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429-32 (1984); Millar v. Taylor, 98 Eng. Rep. 201, 218, 252-53 (K.B. 1769); Adam Smith,Lectures on Jurisprudence 83 (Ronald L. Meek et al. eds., Liberty Classics 1982)(1762); William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, An Economic Analysis of CopyrightLaw, 18 J. Legal Stud. 325 (1989); Neil W. Netanel, Copyright and a Democratic CivilSociety, 106 Yale L.J. 283 (1996).13. See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217 A (III), U.N. GAOR3d Sess., pt. 1, at art. 27(2), U.N. Doc. A/RES/217 A (III) (1948) (stating “[e]veryone hasthe right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from anyscientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.”); Wendy J. Gordon,A Property Right in Self Expression: Equality and Individualism in the Natural Law ofIntellectual Property, 102 Yale L.J. 1533 (1993).14. See generally Margaret J. Radin, Property and Personhood, 34 Stan. L. Rev.957 (1982) (exploring the relationship between property and personhood).15. See generally Peter Jaszi, Toward a Theory of Copyright: The Metamorphosesof “Authorship”, 1991 Duke L.J. 455 (1991); The Construction of Authorship: TextualAppropriation in Law and Literature (Martha Woodmansee & Peter Jaszi eds., 1994)(discussing the relationship between copyright and literary and artistic culture).