Innovation Law and Policy Workshop
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
presents
Professor Abraham Drassinower
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
What’s Wrong with Copying?
Friday, February 5, 2010
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
This paper develops three related propositions. The first is
that, once the concept of “user rights” in copyright law is taken seriously,
unauthorized reproduction of works of authorship can no longer be characterized
as the act that copyright law most basically prohibits. That is, there is
nothing wrong with copying per se. The second proposition is that
unauthorized publication is the act that copyright law most basically
prohibits. That is, copyright is an exclusive right of public presentation. The
third is that the justification of copyright as an exclusive right of public
presentation is autonomy-based. The wrongfulness of unauthorized publication is
a wrong to the author’s autonomy as a speaking being. Unauthorized publication
is wrongful because it is compelled speech. The paper develops all three propositions
through analyses of copyright doctrine or concepts; in particular, the
requirement of originality, the defence of independent creation, the right of
first publication, fair dealing, and the distinction between works subject to
copyright protection and inventions subject to patent protection. Throughout,
the paper emphasizes the import of the autonomy-based justification of
copyright law for the understanding of copyright subject matter, of copyright
exceptions, of the expansion of the public domain, and of the encounter between
copyright and digital technology.
Abraham Drassinower is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto
Faculty of Law and Chair in the Legal, Ethical and Cultural Implications of
Technological Innovation. He joined the Faculty of Law in 1999, and served as
the Director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy from 2006 to 2009. He
previously held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Toronto (1993-1995), and lectured principally on
political philosophy at York University (1993-1995) and at the University of
Toronto (1995-1998). He served as a Law Clerk to Mr. Justice John C. Major of
the Supreme Court of Canada (1998-1999). Professor Drassinower's interests
include property, intellectual property, legal and political philosophy,
critical theory, and psychoanalysis. He has spoken widely and internationally
on copyright law, and published in the areas of charitable trusts, unjust
enrichment, intellectual property, and psychoanalysis and political theory. He
is currently working on a book on the public domain in copyright law.
A light lunch will be served.
Sponsored by the Microsoft Law and Information Society Project
