Private Property Concerning Digitized Cultural Goods: Artificial Scarcity and Appropriation through Reproduction

ABSTRACT

Intellectual property is a legal concept used to regulate cultural goods and artistic forms of expression. It constitutes a peculiar regulation, as it applies the categories of private property to intangible goods. With the spread of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which has allowed for the reproduction and global diffusion of these cultural goods, conflicts concerning intellectual property have increased. This article attempts to analyze some difficulties in using a concept such as private property to approach the marketing of cultural goods, especially when technology eliminates the quality of scarcity of these goods, which can be infinitely reproduced at almost zero cost.

KEYWORDS:

• Copyright
• digitalization
• intellectual property
• private property
• rivalry
• scarcity

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Prof. Dr. Antonio Giménez Merino for all his help and his advice regarding the topics of this article.

Notes

1. This statement may no longer hold true in a relatively short time due to the rapid development of 3D printers. This, however, goes beyond the aim and scope of this research.

2. Rosa M. García Sanz playfully argues: “Centuries have proven that without the legal recognition of the concept and without economic compensation, creators have produced more or less fortunately in terms of originality. Creation therefore exists independently of recognition and legal protection. It is business interests that cannot survive without being profitable” (2005, 188).

3. The original title of the work, very adequate for the theme Edelman outlines, is Le droit saisi par la photographie: Elements pour une théorie du droit [Ownership of the Image: Elements for a Marxist Theory of Law].