Map

The notes for all of my lectures on the theories of intellectual property and most of the accompanying slide presentations are available in or through a “mind map,” which is available in the formats listed below. (Instructions on how to use one of these maps are available here.)

• • iThoughts
  • Freemind
  • Mindmanager
  • Html5
  • Html (outline form)

Overview

A short (somewhat dated) survey of this field can be found in William Fisher, “Theories of Intellectual Property,” originally published in Stephen Munzer, ed., New Essays in the Legal and Political Theory of Property (Cambridge University Press, 2001). A Chinese translation of the article, by Haifeng Huang, can be found in Chinese Intellectual Property Review 1 (2002): 1.

Bibliography

A selected bibliography pertaining to the four principal branches of Intellectual Property Theory, with links to publicly available versions of some of the documents, is set forth below.

Fairness Theory

• • Arneson, Richard S. “The Principle of Fairness and Free-rider Problems.” Ethics 92 (1982): 616
  • Becker, Lawrence C. “Deserving To Own Intellectual Property.” Chicago-Kent Law Review 68 (1993): 609
  • Bok, Sissela.  Lying:  Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. (1978)
  • Child, James W. “The Moral Foundations of Intangible Property.” The Monist (1990).
  • Drahos, Peter.  A Philosophy of Intellectual Property (1996).
  • Damstedt, Benjamin G. “Limiting Locke: A Natural Law Justification for the Fair Use Doctrine.” Yale Law Journal 112 (2003).
  • Gordon, Wendy J. “A Property Right in Self-Expression.” Yale Law Journal 102 (1993).
  • ______. “On Owning Information: Intellectual Property and the Restitutionary Impulse.”  Virginia Law Review 78 (1992): 149
  • Hettinger, Edwin C. “Justifying Intellectual Property.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 31.
  • Hughes, Justin. “The Philosophy of Intellectual Property.” Georgetown Law Journal 77 (1988): 287.
  • Kenneally, Michael E. “Misappropriation and the Morality of Free-Riding.” Stanford Technology Law Review 18 (2015): 289
  • Lacey, Linda J. “Of Bread and Roses and Copyrights.” Duke Law Journal (1989): 1532
  • McGowan, David. “Copyright Nonconsequentialism.” Missouri Law Review 69 (2004).
  • Merges, Robert P. Locke for the Masses: Property Rights and the Products of Collective Creativity. SSRN, 2009.
  • ______. Justifying Intellectual Property. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
  • Moore, Adam D. “Intangible Property: Privacy, Power, and Information Control.” American Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1998) 365 (1998)
  • ______. “A Lockean Theory of Intellectual Property.” Hamline Law Review 21 (1997): 65
  • ______.  “A Lockean Theory of Intellectual Property Revisited.” San Diego Law Review 49 (2012): 1069
  • Mossoff, Adam. “Saving Locke from Marx: The Labor Theory of Value in Intellectual Property Theory.” Social Philosophy and Policy 29 (2012): 283
  • Palmer, Tom G. “Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 13 (1990): 817
  • Shiffrin, Seana Valentine. “Lockean Arguments for Private Intellectual Property,” in New Essays on the Legal and Political Theory of Property (Cambridge University Press)
  • Spector, Horacio M. “An Outline of a Theory Justifying Intellectual Property Rights.” European Intellectual Property Review 8 (1989): 270
  • Sterk, Stewart. “Rhetoric and Reality in Copyright Law.” Michigan Law Review 94 (1996): 1197
  • Reese, R. Anthony. “Reflections on the Intellectual Commons: Two Perspectives on Copyright Duration and Reversion.” Stanford Law Review 47 (1995): 707
  • Sheff, Jeremy N.  “Marks, Morals, and Markets.”  Stanford Law Review 65 (2013): 761
  • Sterk, Stewart, “Rhetoric and Reality in Copyright Law.” Michigan Law Review 94 (1996): 1197
  • Yen, Alfred.  “Restoring the Natural Law: Copyright as Labor and Possession.” Ohio State Law Journal 51 (1990): 517
  • Zemer, Lior. “The Making of a New Copyright Lockean.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 29 (2006): 892.

Welfare Theory

• • Bentham, Jeremy. A Manual of Political Economy (1839)
  • Besen, Stanley M. & Leo J. Raskind, An Introduction to the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property, 5 J. Econ. Perspect. 3 (1991)
  • Breyer, Stephen. “The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs,” 84 Harv. L. Rev. 281 (1970)
  • Crouch, Dennis. The Patent Lottery: Exploiting Behavioral Economics for the Common Good, 16 George Mason Law Review 141 (2008)
  • Goldstein, Paul. Copyright’s Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox Ch. 5 (1995)
  • Gordon, Wendy J..  “Fair Use as Market Failure: A Structural and Economic Analysis of the Betamax Case and Its Predecessors,” 82 Colm. L. Rev. 1600 (1982)
  • Hadfield, Gilliam K. “The Economics of Copyright: An Historical Perspective,” 38 Copyright L. Symposium (ASCAP) 1 (1992)
  • Hansmann, Henry & Marina Santilli.  “Authors’ and Artists’ Moral Rights: A Comparative Legal and Economic Analysis,” 26 J. Legal Stud. 95 (1997)
  • Hurt, Robert M. & Robert M. Schuchman, “The Economic Rationale of Copyright,” 56 Am. Econ. Rev. 421 (1966)
  • Kitch, Edmund W. “Elementary and Persistent Errors in the Economic Analysis of Intellectual Property,” 53 Vand. L. Rev. 1727 (2000)
  • Landes, William M. & Richard A. Posner, The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law (2003)
  • Lemley, Mark A. “Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Justifications for Intellectual Property,” U. Chi. L. Rev. 129 (2004)
  • _____.  “Faith-Based Intellectual Property”. UCLA Law Review 62 (2015): 1328
  • Liebowitz, Stan J. & Stephen Margolis, Seventeen Famous Economists Weigh in on Copyright: The Role of Theory, Empirics, and Network Effects, 18 Harv J.L. & Tech. 435 (2005)
  • Menell, Peter. Intellectual Property: General Theories
  • Shavell, Steven & Tanguy van Ypersele.  “Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights,” 44 J.L. & Com. 525 (2001)
  • Stiglitz, Joseph E. “Economic Foundations of Intellectual Property Rights,” 57 Duke L.J. 1693 (2008)

Personality Theory

• • Fromer, Jeanne C. “Expressive Incentives in Intellectual Property.” Virginia Law Review 98 (2012): 1745
  • __________.  “A Psychology of Intellectual Property.” Northwestern University Law Review 104 (2010): 1441
  • Haemmerli, Alice. “Whose Who? The Case for a Kantian Right of Publicity.” Duke Law Journal 49 (1999): 383
  • Hughes, Justin. “The Philosophy of Intellectual Property.” Georgetown Law Journal 77 (1988): 287
  • Katyal, Sonia.  “Semiotic Disobedience.” Washington University Law Review 84 (2006): 489
  • Kwall, Roberta. “Originality in Context.” Houston Law Review 44 (2007): 871
  • _______.  The Soul of Creativity: Forging a Moral Rights Law for the United States.  (2010)
  • Merges, Robert P. Justifying Intellectual Property. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011
  • Piotraut, Jean-Luc. “An Author’s Rights-Based Copyright Law: The Fairness and Morality of French and American Law Compared.” Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 24 (2006)
  • Radin, Margaret Jane. Reinterpreting Property. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993
  • Rigamonti, Cyrill P. “Deconstructing Moral Rights.” Harvard International Law Journal 47 (2006)
  • ______. “The Conceptual Transformation of Moral Rights.” American Journal of Comparative Law 55 (2007): 67
  • Waldron, Jeremy. The Right to Private Property. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988
  • Yonover, Geri J. “The “Dissing” of Davinci: The Imaginary Case of Leonardo V. Duchamp: Moral Rights, Parody, and Fair Use.” Valparaiso Law Review 29 (1995)

Cultural Theory

• • Aoki, Keith. “Pastures of Peonage: Tracing the Feedback Loop of Food Through I.P., G.M.O.s, Trade, Immigration, and U.S. Agro-Maquilas.” Northwestern University Law Journal 4 (2012)
  • Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (2006)
  • Boyle, James. Software, Shamans, and Spleens (1997)
  • _____. The Public Domain (2008)
  • Bracha, Oren, “Not De Minimis: Improper Appropriation in Copyright,” American University Law Review 68 (2018): 139
  • Bracha, Oren & Talha Syed, “Beyond Efficiency: Consequence-Sensitive Theories of Copyright” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 29 (2014): 229
  • Cohen, Julie. Configuring the Networked Self (2012)
  • Fisher, William. “Reconstructing the Fair Use Doctrine,” Harvard Law Review 101 (1988): 1659
  • _____. Recalibrating Originality (2016)
  • _____. Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment (Stanford University Press 2004)
  • _____. The Puzzle of Traditional Knowledge.  Duke Law Journal (2018)
  • _____. When Should We Permit Differential Pricing of Information? (2007)
  • Gingerich, Jonathan, “Rethinking Rawls: Constitutional Cultural Liberties in Liberal Democracies,” Northeastern University Law Review 11 (2019): 405
  • Hickey, Kevin, “Copyright Paternalism,” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law 19 (2017): 415
  • Lee, Peter, “Toward a Distributive Agenda for Patent Law,” Houston Law Review 55 (2017): 321
  • Netanel, Neil.  Copyright’s Paradox (2008)
  • Rose, Simone.  “The Supreme Court and Patents: Moving Toward a Postmodern Vision of ‘Progress’?” Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal (2013)
  • Sang, Yoonmo, “Toward Cultural Democracy:  Digital First Sale Doctrine and Copyright,” Communications Law & Policy 21 (2016): 221
  • Silbey, Jessica. Against Progress (2022)
  • Sunder, Madhavi. From Goods to a Good Life (2012)