Copyright Law and Derivative Works : Regulating Creativity Paperback / softback

Copyright law regulates creativity. It affects the way people create works of authorship ex-ante and affects the status of works of authorship significantly ex-post.

But does copyright law really understand creativity?

Should legal theories alone inform our regulation of the creative process?This book views copyright law as a law of creativity.

It asks whether copyright law understands authorship as other creativity studies fields do.

It considers whether copyright law should incorporate non-legal theories, and if so, how it should be adjusted in their light.

For this purpose, the book focuses on one of the many rights that copyright law regulates – the right to make a derivative work.

A work is considered derivative when it is based on one or more preexisting works.

Today, the owner of a work of authorship has the exclusive right to make derivative works based on her original work or to allow others to do so.

The book suggests a new way to think about both the right, the tension, and copyright law at large.

It proposes relying on non-legal fields like cognitive psychology and genre theories, and offers new legal-theoretical justifications for the right to make derivative works. As the first book to consider the intersection between copyright law, creativity and derivative works, this will be a valuable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners interested in intellectual property and copyright law.