Is Copyright Maternal?

If you are one of those individuals that wondered why copyright, or intellectual property for that matter, was not doused with a bit of critical theory or CLS (better known as Critical Legal Studies), well, this is your lucky day. William Patry comments on the gendering of copyright as well as the problematic of birthing metaphors and binaries (pateral vs. maternal; body v. mind) via a few law review articles (which interestingly are from either the late 1980s, the height of the CLS movement, or within the last two years, the rebirth of CLS?).

“A powerful metaphor employed to argue that authors should have extensive control over the works they create is the metaphor evoking the relationship between an author and the author’s works as that of a parent-child, called the creation-as-birth metaphor. …The creation-as-birth metaphor posits an intimate connection between what an author creates and his or her work. It would therefore be a violation of the author’s very person to use his to her work without permission. Feminist legal writers have explored the personhood metaphor as it is used in copyright.”

Interesting thoughts indeed! We are now looking for transgendered approaches and interpretations to “fair use,” preferably authored by Justice Scalia.