Journal of Free Speech Law: “Humanist Copyright,” by Jane Ginsburg
The article, based on Prof. Ginsburg’s Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture, is here; the Introduction:
Much American copyright rhetoric vaunts technological progress and economÂic incentives. One reading of the constitutional copyright clause characterizes copyright as a necessary (if unappealing) encouragement to the advancement of innovation. These emphases tend to obscure the centrality of human creativity to copyright law and theory.
In this article, provocatively titled “Humanist Copyright,” I develop a counter-narrative. I seek to highlight the role of human authorship in the copyright scheme. The title references not only current debates over AI-generated outputs but also the proposition that authors’ rights embody and advance human achievement. Copyright celebrates human creativity, for multiple reasons, economic and social, but also grounded in the person of the author. I trace these concepts to Italian Renaissance humanism and the emergence of the author as entrepr
Article from Reason.com
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