Jessica Silbey

The Eureka Myth

Creators, Innovators, and Everyday Intellectual Property

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Jessica Silbey is Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School. Professor Silbey's work engages a cultural analysis of law. Professor Silbey has written for various journals and news outlets, and is coeditor of Law and Justice on the Small Screen (2012).

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 368
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. Dezember 2014
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 599g
• ISBN-13: 9780804783378
• ISBN-10: 0804783373
• Artikelnr.: 40919971

Autorenporträt

Jessica Silbey is Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School. Professor Silbey's work engages a cultural analysis of law. Professor Silbey has written for various journals and news outlets, and is coeditor of Law and Justice on the Small Screen (2012).

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction introduces the book as a qualitative empirical interview
study with artists, scientists, engineers and business people in creative
and innovative industries. It situates the book as an investigation into
the motives and mechanisms of creative and innovative work and in the
context of the theoretical and quantitative literature on IP and its
success at achieving the "progress of science and the useful arts," a
Constitutional goal. Based on analysis of the accounts from the interviews,
the introduction describes how there exists a diversity of reasons for and
mechanisms by which creative and innovative work gets made and distributed,
only a small part of which is intellectual property law. This challenges
core principles of IP law, especially an assumption that exclusivity
through property rights is essential to stimulating art, science and
technological progress.
1Inspired Beginnings
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 traces the features of a specific story form, "the origin story"
throughout the interviews. An "origin story" begins with an inspired moment
that sets the person or organization on its path. Origin stories serves
particular purposes. They explain how a culture or society began (e.g.,
Genesis). They infuse an aspect of everyday life with special significance
by explaining why things are as they are (e.g., "you were born that way").
They guide how things should evolve in the future (e.g., "the agreement
memorializes our future intentions"). Each interviewee explains a milestone
in their professional life in terms of an origin story, referring to a past
that has unique significance for making sense of the present. Chapter 1
canvasses these origin stories to explain how most describe the embarkation
of their work in art or science mostly due to intrinsic or serendipitous
forces, unrelated to IP.
2Daily Craft: Work Makes Work
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 explores the varied ways the interviewees describe their daily
work. Similarities in accounts coalesce around the dimensions of time,
space and labor. Most articulate a common respect for constant and
committed daily work, focusing on the importance of physical spaces
(studio, lab, desk) and time spent. Distinct metaphors and word patterns
illuminate the expressive focus on time, space and labor, highlighting a
misfit between IP protection and the interviewees' aspirations or
expectations for reward. Interviewees describe work with natural metaphors
(e.g., harvesting or fishing), implying that the physical labor dignifies
the output. This contrasts with IP, which does not reward labor or time.
Interviewees translate their intellectual work into tangible output,
comparing their work to real or personal property. Ironically, describing
the value of their work in material terms strengthens the possessive
impulse manifesting as property claims that are more robust than IP law
provides.
3Making Do With A Mismatch
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 describes the transitions from beginnings and everyday work to
the business of developing a career in IP-rich fields. Interviewees provide
diverse accounts of "making do" in creative and innovative industries.
Although some interviewees describe direct reliance on specific forms of
IP, many business models rely only indirectly on IP rights. Indeed, most
interviewees embrace a system of IP that is "leaky" or misaligned insofar
as IP is not the optimal avenue for achieving professional goals.
Interviewees rarely describe the need to exercise the full range of
exclusivity to which IP law entitles them. Although IP rights are both
under-enforced and over-enforced at times, the most common strategy
interviewees describe is to relax IP rights in order to achieve three
common goals: a sustainable business, productive and satisfying
relationships, and a measure of autonomy in life and work.
4Reputation
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 describes how interviewees value reputation and attribution. When
asked to describe some of the most contentious infractions during their
career, interviewees describe reputational free riding, not economic free
riding. And where the two intersect (which is often, especially in the
trademark context), language of dignity and desert rather than economic
harm dominates. Moreover, interviewees assert a desire for reputational
control from IP law where it rarely exists. This Chapter analyzes the
common accounts and metaphors that predominate in stories of reputational
injury - stories of family, bodily integrity and life or death.
Understandably, emotions run high in this context and the language seeking
to justify the entitlement to reputational control often resemble stronger
rights and obligations than IP (or neighboring regimes) provide.
Over-protection in these situations can lead to misuse of IP laws or an
increasing frustration from artists and scientists that IP law is
irrelevant to them.
5Instruction: How Lawyers Harvest IP
chapter abstract
Chapter Five describes how IP intervenes as an external force shaping and
directing art and science. IP law affecting the work's on-going vitality is
largely absent until a lawyer or business partner intervenes. IP arrives
later for creative and innovative work trajectory and comes with a coach.
Interviewees describe lawyers as disruptive and distracting, whereas the
lawyer describes herself as bringing tools to facilitate work or business.
When the lawyer is welcome, it is when she has translated IP into client
interests resonating with everyday work or goals. The lawyer's varied
characterizations of IP in terms the client accepts correlates to
jurisprudential categories of legality (e.g., natural law, distributive
justice). This invites the conclusion that IP's form and purpose, shaped by
legal advice and client concerns, is not predetermined by legal rules or
economic principles, but is constitutive of creativity and innovation and
influenced by preexisting interests and motivations.
6Distribution: How IP Circulates
chapter abstract
Dissemination is the ultimate goal of IP and a dominant reason interviewees
pursue their work. Interviewees describe managing formal and informal
agreements outlining the nature and scope of distribution. These agreements
vary, from free and promiscuous sharing to circumscribed and discriminating
price schemes. The propertization of the work (protecting it through
exclusivity) is sometimes a precondition to fulfilling distribution goals,
which include: earning a living, building relationships, sustaining
professional autonomy and challenging core competencies. But interviewees
describe how relaxed distribution networks satisfy most personal and
professional goals. Indeed, strictly controlling dissemination - what IP
law provides - is only one distributional method and not the most common.
This chapter analyzes the interviews for accounts of the many forms
dissemination takes and the reasons for engaging in it, unpacking the
relationships between exclusive rights to distribution on the one hand and
dissemination as a form of professional and personal success on the other.
Conclusion: Conclusion
chapter abstract
The book closes with a summary of how U.S. intellectual property regimes
are misaligned with the needs of and hopes for those engaging in creative
and inventive work. It further suggests reasons for and ways that the IP
system should remain misaligned: to promote choice and flexibility for
creators and innovators (whether or not they own or claim IP rights). But
the conclusion also suggests places in our IP system where some relaxation
of our IP system might usefully occur in order to facilitate core concerns
of IP-rich fields and their audience as accounted for in the interview
data.