Copyright Law and Derivative Works

<p>Copyright law regulates creativity. It affects the way people create works of authorship <em>ex-ante</em> and affects the status of works of authorship significantly <em>ex-post</em>. But does copyright law really understand creativity? Should legal theories alone inform our regulation of the creative process?</p><p></p><p>This book views copyright law as a law of creativity. It asks whether copyright law understands authorship as other creativity studies fields do. It considers whether copyright law should incorporate non-legal theories and if so how it should be adjusted in their light. For this purpose the book focuses on one of the many rights that copyright law regulates – the right to make a derivative work. A work is considered derivative when it is based on one or more preexisting works. Today the owner of a work of authorship has the exclusive right to make derivative works based on her original work or to allow others to do so. The book suggests a new way to think about both the right the tension and copyright law at large. It proposes relying on non-legal fields like cognitive psychology and genre theories and offers new legal-theoretical justifications for the right to make derivative works.</p><p></p><p>As the first book to consider the intersection between copyright law creativity and derivative works this will be a valuable resource for students scholars and practitioners interested in intellectual property and copyright law.</p>