Creativity without Law: Challenging the Assumptions of Intellectual Property

Behind the scenes of the many artists and innovators flourishing beyond the bounds of intellectual property laws

Intellectual property law, or IP law, is based on certain assumptions about creative behavior. The case for regulation assumes that creators have a fundamental legal right to prevent copying, and without this right they will under-invest in new work. But this premise fails to fully capture the reality of creative production. It ignores the range of powerful non-economic motivatio...