Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2019
Journal Title
Boston University Law Review
ISSN
0006-8047
Abstract
In this symposium, we gather to celebrate the work of Wendy Gordon. In this essay, I revisit her article, A Property Right in Self-Expression: Equality and Individualism in the Natural Law of Intellectual Property. In the article, Professor Gordon first used the "no-harm" principle of John Locke to justify copyright as natural right and then used his “enough-and-as-good” proviso to limit that right. Her second step turned natural rights approaches to copyright on its head. Through it, she showed that even if we accept copyright as natural right, that acceptance does not necessarily lead to a copyright of undue breadth or perpetual duration. Rather, even a natural rights framework leads to a copyright regime shorter and narrower than we presently have.
While I agree that copyright should be shorter and narrower, I worry that Professor Gordon conceded too much in her first step. Neither Locke’s reasoning nor Professor Gordon’s reading of it can justify a right to prohibit copying as a matter of natural law. It is not the right to prohibit copying to which we have a natural entitlement. It is the right to copy.
First Page
2491
Last Page
2518
Num Pages
28
Volume Number
99
Issue Number
6
Publisher
Boston University School of Law
Recommended Citation
Glynn Lunney,
A Natural Right to Copy,
99
B.U. L. Rev.
2491
(2019).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1377