The concept of copyright developed to protect commercial interests. Commercial interests by their very nature are ephemeral, unstable and fleeting. In contrast, the expression of originality, in whatever medium, is valued above mere commerce. Originality embodies some aspect of the permanent, a strand of continuity that secures an element of longevity within high or popular culture. The prevailing ethos in art and design institutions, and in the industries they serve, places great value on creativity and originality. This paper will address concepts of originality, our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in visual creativity and their relationship to concepts of copyright. 

Right on! A German hacker's compression scheme topples the profiteering capitalists of the music recording industry, liberating forever the...

But wait a minute: is this really true? Will mp3 technology and the distributive power of the www "disintermediate" the powerful and resourceful recording industry? And even if the old Titans are outflanked, will Microsoft do its Microsoft number and metabolize mp3 music?

The issues -- musical, legal, sociological, and highly personal -- are still unfolding like a fractal whose source equation is unknown. Are there patterns to the emergence of the mp3 revolution? Drop by, listen in, and add your own thoughts to the discussion in Call Session 3, "Rethinking Intellectual property."

John Locke's theory of appropriation is a standard starting-point for theories of individual property rights. In this paper, I argue that his theory, properly understood, ends up lending some credibility to a communal theory of intellectual property.

Locke argues that one may legitimately appropriate things by mixing one's labor with them, and most commentators take him to mean that, since one owns one's labor, mixing it with a thing attaches to that thing something that already belongs to one. I argue that we can and should understand Locke to be saying that one's labor is an intrinsic property of oneself (as solubility is an intrinsic property of salt), by means of which one makes other things into parts of oneself.

The appropriation of intellectual property is actually a clearer case of mixing labor with that which becomes one's property than those which Locke describes, since one creates the products with which it is "mixed." However, there are three problems with this theory. First, it fails to distinguish one person's intellectual labor from another's; second, intellectual creation is often a collaborative, rather than an individual endeavor; and, third, intellectual labor is most often mixed with media of communication which can never belong to any individual.

It looks, then, as though Locke's theory might help those who argue for communal intellectual property rights. The only apparent way out of this impasse would be to invoke a highly-controversial principle of entitlement to one's products via individual genius.