Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
ISSN
0029-4535
Publisher
Notre Dame Law School
Language
en-US
Abstract
This Article is part of a larger empirical study based on face-to-face interviews with artists, scientists, engineers, their lawyers, agents, and business partners. The book-length project involves the collecting and analysis of stories from artists, scientists, and engineers about how and why they create and innovate. It also collects stories from their employers, business partners, managers, and lawyers about their role in facilitating the process of creating and innovating. The book’s aim is to make sense of the intersection between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity, specifically to discern how intellectual property intervenes in the careers of the artists and scientists. This paper is an overview of the first two chapters of the book. The first is entitled “Inspired Beginnings” and explains how people describe the embarkation on a life’s work in art and science mostly as a function of intrinsic or serendipitous forces. The second chapter is entitled “The Work of Craft: Work Makes Work” and explores the varied ways the interviewees describe their daily work in terms of the pleasure of sitting in a defined space (lab, studio, study) and focusing on the details of a project. This second chapter also discusses how work is described in terms of natural metaphors (e.g. harvesting or fishing) and the possible ramifications of this rhetoric for intellectual property law and policy.
Recommended Citation
Jessica Silbey,
Harvesting Intellectual Property: Inspired Beginnings and 'Work-Makes-Work,' Two Stages in the Creative Processes of Artists and Innovators
,
in
86
Notre Dame Law Review
2091
(2011).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1059
