Authorship, aesthetics and the artworld: reforming copyright’s joint authorship doctrine

Biron, L. and Cooper, E. (2016) Authorship, aesthetics and the artworld: reforming copyright’s joint authorship doctrine. Law and Philosophy, 35(1), pp. 55-85. (doi: 10.1007/s10982-015-9244-y)

Abstract

This article considers the extent to which insights from the philosophy of art can assist copyright law in identifying the author or authors of works to which many have contributed. In doing so, it looks to institutional theories of art, which go beyond a simple bifurcation of ‘author’ and ‘work’, and focus instead on broader determinants of an art work’s production, such as the ‘artworld’. It puts forward a framework focusing on three components of authorship supported by these theories: role, authority and intention. The paper then draws attention to some important challenges that this framework raises for copyright law’s joint authorship doctrine in the UK and USA, and suggests some ways in which copyright law might be reformed, so as to allow copyright to retain its own benchmarks while also bringing conceptions of authorship in law and art closer together.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cooper, Dr Elena
• Authors: Biron, L., and Cooper, E.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Journal Name: Law and Philosophy
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• ISSN: 0167-5249
• ISSN (Online): 1573-0522
• Published Online: 05 November 2015
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 Springer-Verlag
• First Published: First published in Law and Philosophy 2015
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.