Document Type

Article

Publication Title

University of Chicago Law Review

Abstract

Debates on issues in copyright law have long exhibited a clash between alternative visions of the goal that copyright seeks to achieve. One group sees copyright as a means for enhancing the creative environment and so tends to suggest resolutions of open issues that are highly attuned to the interests of authors. Another camp takes an economic approach centered on questions of public welfare. Under this view, public access emerges as a central concern, and the rights of authors are thought protectable only insofar as they are necessary to stimulate the optimal level of innovative production. Ralph Brown has recently suggested that neither approach fully captures the social interests that are at stake, and that greater insights might be obtained if the two views were somehow melded. This paper is an attempt to carry out Professor Brown's proposal.

First Page

590

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2307/1599800

Volume

54

Publication Date

1987

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