Copyright

Embedded within the word “copyright” is a simple and succinct self-definition. It means, quite literally, the right to copy. Unlike “intellectual property,” a term that did not come into common usage until the mid-twentieth century, “copyright” has been used for centuries, dating from 1735. The term accurately describes what this legal doctrine is and how it functions. Often understood as a synonym for “copyright,” “intellectual property” is actually a deceptive neologism. That is because copyrighted, patented, and trademarked works are not in fact property—they are instead protected by government-granted rights that are limited in how they can be enforced. The term “intellectual property” functions ideologically because it naturalizes an association with physical property that does not exist in law. This encourages many false analogies, such as the common claim that the unauthorized download of a song or a film is like breaking into someone’s car and driving it away. The comparison is misleading because stolen physical property is no longer accessible to the owner, something that is not true when a copyrighted work is appropriated. Put in economic terms, physical property is a rivalrous good, and copyrighted works are nonrivalrous because their use by one consumer does not preclude their simultaneous consumption by another (Boyle 2010; Lessig 2002).