Macmillan, Fiona --- "‘Love is blind, and lovers cannot see’: resisting copyright’s romance" [2018] ELECD 587; in Ullrich, Hanns; Drahos, Peter; Ghidini, Gustavo (eds), "Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 1

Book Title: Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Ullrich, Hanns; Drahos, Peter; Ghidini, Gustavo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781788971157

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: ‘Love is blind, and lovers cannot see’: resisting copyright’s romance

Author(s): Macmillan, Fiona

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

Critical engagement with copyright law has exposed its uncertain and compromised relationship with a range of concepts that inform its justificatory discourse. This engagement addresses, in varying ways and degrees, the mismatch between concepts and conditions of creativity and cultural production, on the one hand, and their mutant second life according to copyright law, on the other. The emergence of a literature on the political economy of copyright, in particular, has exposed the way in which the romantic discourse of copyright has been corrupted by its engagement with the capitalist system. At the same time and running parallel to these debates, copyright as a legal construct has been appropriated into substantial engagements with other legal constructs and regimes. This engagement, precisely because it calls – in often contradictory ways – on particular aspects of the copyright legal regime, provides fertile empirical ground on which to reflect on the debates over the meaning of copyright’s life and work. In the light of the critical literature on the copyright concept, this contribution considers the relationship of the copyright regime with the regimes of international trade, cultural rights and cultural heritage.