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Private property: conceptual and normative analyses (property rights, intellectual property)

Wenar, Leif Edward.

online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium
Thesis (Ph.D.)–Harvard University, 1997.

Summary
 This thesis offers conceptual and normative analyses of private property. Chapter one presents a conceptual analysis. Chapters two and three use this analysis to address prominent theories of what kind of property rights we ought to have. Chapter four criticizes the dominant legal conception of property, and chapter five reconceptualizes intellectual property while evaluating the application of various philosophical theories to it. The main conclusions of these chapters are that there is a coherent and interesting core conception of property, and that the justifiability of any set of property rights will turn on how those rights bear on a diverse set of human interests.
 Chapter one demonstrates that the core conception of property can be identified with the objects of a two-layered structure of Hohfeldian rights. This conception is shown to lie at the overlap of other conceptions of property (commodities, assets, etc.), and to be helpful in describing the complexities of modern property systems.
 Chapter two criticizes familiar Lockean arguments (labor-mixing, desert, etc.) that purport to establish the contemporary relevance of original acquisition of private property.
 Chapter three probes the libertarian disregard for the patterns of ownership that would be generated by a strong right to transfer property. It argues that libertarians can only justify their favored right by referring to the patterns of interests that would result from the right’s exercise. Topics include taxation and self-ownership.
 Chapter four traces the history of interpretation of the takings clause of the US Constitution from the point when the legal academy embraced a mistaken conception of what property is. It explains how the improbable idea that property is rights (not things) drew commentators such as Michelman, Sax, and Epstein toward unnecessarily counterintuitive readings of the clause.
 Chapter five finds that copyright is importantly different from property rights in tangible things. Lockean and Hegelian approaches to copyright are therefore found to be substantially misconceived. Libertarian and law-and-economics approaches to copyright are conceptually better, but do not adequately represent the value pluralism that is integral to all plausible property law.

No way in: The public domain, personal interest and the evolution of copyright
Breyer, John Stewart.

Thesis (Ph.D.)–The University of Southern Mississippi, 2004.
online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium

Summary
The root of American copyright law can be found in Article 1, section 8, paragraph 8, of the Constitution. The concept is simple. The law exists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The law that has evolved from this simple concept is complex and contentious. After more than two and one quarter centuries of evolution, it continues to expand. This research reviews the history of copyright and reflects upon the conflict among the elements that have shaped American copyright law. The dissertation draws upon legal cases that have ultimately determined how the law has been interpreted and distinguishes between two primary factions, the creators and the public. 

The author contends that there are four primary arguments that are mounted to persuade courts, lawmakers, and the public that the original tenets of copyright are no longer functional. The arguments of tangibility, originality, technology, and property are reviewed in detail. The research reveals how employment of these arguments has effectively distracted legislators and the public from the original purpose of American copyright. The result of these distractions is revealed in this research.

Negotiating copyright: Authorship and the discourse of literary property rights in nineteenth-century America (James Fenimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson).

Buinicki, Martin Thomson, Jr.
Thesis (Ph.D.)–The University of Iowa, 2003.
online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium

Summary
“Negotiating Copyright: Authorship and the Discourse of Literary Property Rights in Nineteenth-Century America” examines how debates over copyright law in the United States during the nineteenth century, particularly over the lack of an international copyright law, intersected with the business practices and political and artistic beliefs of American authors. These debates shaped a discourse of literary property rights that forced authors to negotiate their copyrights not only with their publishers, but with their readers as well. Employing the overlapping issues and terms discussed in newspaper editorials, legislative sessions, and the public and private writing of James Fenimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Samuel Clemens, and Emily Dickinson, this dissertation demonstrates how authors found themselves in an uneasy opposition to their reading public. Authors were forced to stake their claim to their rights as property holders while at the same time fending off criticism that literary works should be easily and cheaply available within the rapidly expanding American literary marketplace. As a result, the act of taking out a copyright was more than a mere legal mechanism marking a transition from amateur to professional or artist to businessperson. Taking out a copyright had a profound impact on how audiences viewed authors, how authors perceived their profession, and how they represented individual rights and property ownership within their texts.

A long journey toward intellectual property protection [electronic resource] : A case study of Taiwan’s copyright law reform (China).

Thesis (Ph.D.)–University of Missouri – Columbia, 2001.
online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium

Summary
This study examines the development of copyright protection in Taiwan, from cultural, political, historical and legal points of view and from a variety of sources, including in-depth personal interviews with government officials, lawyers, scholars and officers of intellectual property protection organizations who have either participated in Taiwan’s copyright reform or in the copyright negotiations with the United States. This study also explores underlying factors behind Taiwan’s copyright revolution from the perspectives of press theories and intellectual property theories.
 The author finds that copyright infringement of foreign and domestic works were rampant in Taiwan throughout the second half of the twentieth century because of several historical factors: political, legal, and economic concerns. But lack of the concept of copyright or intellectual property in general in the society was the underpinning factor. In other words, there has been a huge cultural difference between the West and Taiwan in the aspect of intellectual property protection throughout the history of their respective civilizations. This helps explain why copyright piracy was not a concern among the Taiwanese citizens and the Taiwan government until the United States started to pressure Taiwan for improvement with the threat of trade sanctions. Forces behind Taiwan’s copyright reform included external/foreign pressure as well as internal/domestic forces.
 In addition to providing a comprehensive history and analysis of the copyright dispute between the United States and Taiwan and creating a whole new understanding of Taiwan’s copyright reform and the copyright disputes between the two nations, this study also reveals that underlying the comprehensive history of the copyright disputes between the United States and Taiwan, there are the missing elements within the literature about policy toward intellectual property rights in a free or controlled press/speech system. And those elements are important in helping scholars more comprehensively understand how each press/speech system is conceived and operates.
 Most previous literature that discusses free and controlled press systems does not comprehensively explain the importance of intellectual property rights within each tradition. This study suggests that literature should include more intellectual property rights traditions in understanding both press/speech systems.