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Copyright statutes in many jurisdictions clearly state that copyright is a property right. However, it's not always clear exactly how. Some see it as no more than a statutory right, while others think of it as a chose in action, like debts or shares.
Copyright as Personal Property demonstrates why it is incorrect to conceptualize copyright as a chose in action and argues that, despite being an intangible asset, copyright is more analogous to land and chattels.
This book aims to achieve two main objectives. The first is to demonstrate much against popular belief that the analogies with land and chattels help contain the scope of copyright within normatively justifiable limits. Starting with the "thing-relatedness" of copyright, the monograph draws parallels with the acquisition of copyright, the nature of exclusionary rights, exclusive powers and privileges, their enforcement, and derivative interests. It employs concepts of property theory, such as
numerus clausus, to provide the necessary benchmark to guide the boundaries of copyright. The second objective is to challenge the rigid and binary classification of property rights into choses in possession and choses in action. By addressing an important evolutionary gap in the conceptualization of property rights, this work lays the groundwork for a more sophisticated taxonomy, viewing property rights as existing on a spectrum. It goes on to provide the metrics to calibrate this spectrum, ensuring the incremental and orderly development of property rights.
Original and thought-provoking, the analogy this book develops with land and chattels shows how the unjustifiable expansion of copyright can be curbed and offers a more sophisticated classification of property rights than that based simply on tangibility.
List of contents
- 1: Setting the Stage
- 2: Thing-Relatedness in Copyright
- 3: Acquisition of Copyright
- 4: Exclusionary Rights, Exclusive Powers, and Privileges in Copyright
- 5: Copyright Enforcement and Remedies
- 6: Defences and Limits on Uses
- 7: Derivative Interests in Copyright
- Final Remarks
About the author
Dr Poorna Mysoor is a Fellow in Law at Lucy Cavendish College, and an affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Her research lies at the intersection of private law and intellectual property law. She was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at University of Oxford. She obtained her DPhil from University of Oxford, master's from SOAS, University of London, and undergraduate law degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Dr Mysoor was in legal practice for a decade before embarking on her academic journey.
Summary
This book argues that copyright, though intangible, is more like a property right than a chose in action. It aims to use analogies with tangible things to curtail undue expansion of copyright and to challenge rigid property classifications, proposing a more nuanced spectrum-based view of property rights.
