Human Security Aspects of the Intellectual Property Regime

Starting from an argument about the relationship between cultural heritage and national and/or community identity, this article considers the different ways in which both the international law regime for the protection of cultural heritage and the international intellectual property regime tend to appropriate cultural heritage. The article argues that, in the postcolonial context, both these forms of appropriation continue to interfere with the demands for justice and for the recognition of historical wrongs made both by indigenous peoples and by many developing countries. At the same time, the article suggests that these claims are undermined by the misappropriation of the postcolonial discourse with respect to restitution of cultural heritage, particularly in the intra-European context. The article advocates the need for a regime for the protection of cultural heritage that is strong enough to resist its private appropriation through the use of intellectual property rights and nuanced enough to recognise significant differences in the political context of local and national claims to cultural heritage.

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International Intellectual Property Law and Human Security

10.1007/978-90-6704-900-9 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Robin Ramcharan

Keyword(s):

Intellectual Property ◽

Human Security ◽

Property Law ◽

Intellectual Property Law

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Customary Norms

Characters Before Copyright ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198831976.003.0004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 109-142

Author(s):

Matthew H. Birkhold

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Intellectual Property ◽

Fan Fiction ◽

Enforcement Mechanisms ◽

The Right ◽

Property Regime ◽

Potential Origin

Analyzing twenty-two examples of fan fiction, Chapter 3 uncovers the unwritten customary norms that governed the production and dissemination of these works. After defining customary norms as an alternative to formal law and briefly accounting for their potential origin, this chapter analyzes each norm in detail. In all, five rules, or customary norms, governed the production of fan fiction in the eighteenth century. Together, they amounted to a customary intellectual property regime comprising rights, trespass norms, exceptions, and enforcement mechanisms. This chapter then examines an exception to the rules for publishers who held the right to publish sequels and continuations. Finally, it focuses on Nicolai’s Joys of Young Werther and Schiller’s Geisterseher as examples of the effectiveness of these mechanisms, showing how they prevented egregious departures from the customary norms.

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