APPROPRIATING CREATIVE WORKS PROTECTED BY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Abstract

The ownership, either public or private, is an expression for appropriating goods. Consequently, the appropriation takes the form of private (i.e. private property) and common forms (i.e. public property). The common law property defines appropriation as a deliberate act of acquisition of something, often without the permission of the owner, but the intellectual property rights do not protect goods. Particularly in this case the object of appropriation does not represent a res nullius simply because the intellectual property right arises from the act of creation, therefore the appropriation of somebody elses creation becomes equivalent with stealing (plagiarism). Consequently, if we are to admit that the authors have a right of ownership over them, then ownership in intellectual property law has (it must have) other manifestations than those known and accepted in the common law of property.