Justifying the Protection of Intellectual Property

Adam D. Moore, University of Washington Department of Philosophy, has published Intellectual Property and Copyright. Here is the abstract.

Legal protections for intellectual property have a rich history that stretches back to ancient Greece and before. As different legal systems matured in protecting intellectual works, there was a refinement of what was being protected within different areas. Over the same period several strands of moral justification for intellectual property were offered: namely, personality-based, utilitarian, and Lockean. This essay will discuss all of these topics, focusing on Anglo-American and European legal and moral conceptions of intellectual property.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.