Western Dualism and the Regulation of Cultural Production

This work sets out to consider the fate of creativity and forms of cultural production as they fall into and between the regimes of cultural heritage law and intellectual property law. It examines and challenges the dualisms that ground both regimes, exposing their (unsurprising) reflection of occidental ways of seeing the world. The work reflects on the problem of regulating creativity and cultural production according to Western thought systems in a world that is not only Western. At the same time, it accepts that the challenge in taking on the dualisms that hold together the existing legal regimes regulating creativity and cultural production lies in a critically nuanced approach to the geo-political distinction between the West and the rest. Like many of the distinctions considered in this book, this is one that holds and does not hold.

The Normativity of Musical Works

The cases of copyright infringement that occasionally crop up in the world of music raise many interesting questions: what do we mean when we talk about the identity of a musical work and what does such an identity involve? What in fact are the properties that make it something worth protecting and preserving? These issues are not only of legal relevance, they are central to a philosophical discipline that has seen considerable advances over the last few decades: musical ontology. Taking into account its main theoretical models, this essay argues that an understanding of the ontological status of musical works should acknowledge the irreducible ambivalence of music as an “art of the trace” and as a “performative art.” It advocates a theory of the musical work as a “social object” and, more specifically, as a sound artefact that functions aesthetically and which is based on a trace informed by a normative value. Such a normativity is further explored in relation to three primary ways of conceiving and fixing the trace: orality, notation and phonography.

A Theory of Law and Literature

The present publication stems from the idea that a comparison between law and literature must be framed starting from the modes in which law and literature function. In this sense, we read law and literature as arts of compromising characterised by an analogous and yet, at the same time, profoundly different structure. Both, in fact, mediate conflicts between norms and transgressions, and more precisely between a principle of normativity (repression) on the one hand, and a principle of counternormativity (repressed) on the other hand. Through a progression in three steps, aimed at clarifying some peculiarities of law (1) and literature (2), and by referring to examples of their interaction (3), some hypotheses are sketched on why a placement across these two arts of compromising suggests some theoretical itineraries on their threshold.

Industrial Design and Artistic Expression

The complex nature of industrial design, which combines functional and aesthetic elements, allows for different modes of protection, with cumulative, separate or partially overlapping regimes applicable according to different legal systems. The legal framework is rapidly changing, especially in Europe where the principle of cumulation of a special sui generis regime for protecting industrial design with copyright rules has been established. Over the last decade, the national courts of some Member States construed the “cumulative regime” with a peculiar meaning, while other courts enforced design rights in line with the interpretation given by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The copyright/design interface is presented here to a wider, non-specialist audience, taking as a starting point the notion of industrial design derived from design studies, on the borderline between art and science. Other challenges which will need to be confronted urgently over the coming years are also raised.

Law and Images

Law and images are generally regarded as two separate areas. Yet, in many ways law and images intersect, such as when legal rules try to control the production, dissemination and consumption of images, and when law is the subject of images. In parallel to the well-established “law and literature”, the paper attempts to connect two fields of research, law studies and visual studies, that are usually disjointed, and it outlines what could be an area of interdisciplinarity research labelled “law and images”. The article explains how images work to the readers not familiar with visual sciences, and how normative prohibitions and commandments function to readers not familiar with law studies. In addition, the article provides a survey of the different issues raised when studying the complex relationship between law and images.

From Fountain to Moleskine

Photography was invented in the mid-nineteenth century, and ever since that moment painters have been asking what they are there for. Everyone has their own strategy. Some say they do not paint what is there, but their impressions. Others paint things that are not seen in the world, and therefore cannot be photographed, because they are abstractions. Others yet exhibit urinals in art galleries. This may look like the end of art but, instead, it is the dawn of a new day, not only for painting but – this is the novelty – for every form of art, as well as for the social world in general and for industry, where repetitive tasks are left to machines and humans are required to behave like artists.

A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law

What is the relationship between street art and the law? It is argued that street art has a constitutive relationship with the law. A crucial aspect of the identity of this urban art kind depends on its capacity to turn upside down dominant uses of public spaces. Street artists subvert those laws and social norms that regulate the city. It is shown that street art has not only transformed public spaces and their functions into artistic material, but has also turned its rebellious attitude toward the law into a creative resource. This essay aims at elucidating and arguing for this claim, while drawing important implications at the level of street art’s metaphysics, value, and relationship with rights of intellectual property, in particular copyright and moral rights. At the other end of the spectrum of contractual art, street art is outlaw art.

Law and TV Series

The aim of the article is to analyse seriality from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics. Such an approach reveals that seriality has a normative character that is often overlooked by other disciplines. Seriality is unanimously considered to be one of the most characteristic traits of contemporary popular culture, but the field where it currently comes to the foreground is TV series. They have been studied within media theory and cultural studies for quite a long time, but they have been analysed mainly in terms of their production, distribution, and consumption across various and changing social contexts. Aiming to show how philosophy may contribute to “seriality studies”, the authors follow the agenda of philosophical aesthetics and conceive of seriality as a factor which defines the structure of TV series, their aesthetic properties, as well as their modes of reception. They claim that seriality is normative as it is possible to indicate what features a television show has to have in order to be a serial show as well as the manner in which it should be watched if it is to be experienced as a serial work.

Between Ordinary and Extraordinary

What is the relationship between the general, abstract norm and the singular, concrete case that sometimes affirms a parallel, contrasting, norm? The present book engages with this question. The argument stems from an analysis of extraordinary singular cases that sometimes emerge, sometimes are “produced” or “promoted” as exemplary (for strategic reasons, like in law). I argue that approaching normativity in art and law from the perspective of the singular case also illustrates the theoretical importance of interdisciplinary legal scholarship, since the singularity creates room for extra-legal values to emerge as legitimate demands, desires, needs.