Griffiths, "Dematerialization, Pragmatism and the European Copyright Revolution"

Jonathan Griffiths (Queen Mary University of London, School of Law ) has posted "Dematerialization, Pragmatism and the European Copyright Revolution." It is forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Here's the abstract:

Over the last three centuries, a particular model of copyright law has evolved in the United Kingdom. Under this "dematerialised" model, the law’s attention is directed towards an immaterial, malleable essence (identified as, amongst other things, “originality”, “labour and skill” or creativity”). This immaterial essence has come to serve as a touchstone for the resolution of all fundamental questions concerning the scope and attribution of rights under copyright law - as the threshold for legal protection, as a marker of authorship and as the key concept in the assessment of infringement. Nevertheless, some aspects of copyright doctrine have, until very recently, appeared to remain incompatible with this dominant model. In some situations, rather than focusing purely on an abstract form of property that is capable of shifting from form to form, the law has continued to limit the scope of a copyright owner’s powers by reference to the boundaries of the material form with which the work is first recorded. It is argued here that the maintenance of these apparently incompatible aspects of copyright doctrine is not necessarily the product of theoretical incoherence. Rather, the law’s continued ability to regulate some forms of copyright dispute by reference to material form has served an important function in justifying judicial resistance to expansionist pressures.

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