The Aesthetics and Ethics of Copying

The Aesthetics and Ethics of Copying brings together an interdisciplinary field of scholars to answer the most pressing philosophical questions about copies and copying from a contemporary perspective. This is a fantastic collection. -- Robert Stecker, Professor of Philosophy, Central Michigan University, USA For too long lawyers and legislatures have accepted a loose consensus on the nature and purpose of the 'intangible things' that are regulated by copyright law. The lawyerly consensus now suffers from slippage as legislative and treaty developments put unexpected pressures on existing concepts. The instant volume, The Aesthetics and Ethics of Copying, addresses crucial questions of definition, aesthetic experience, and copyright policy, and employs the kind of philosophic rigor that the field increasingly needs. I recommend this set of fascinating readings very highly. -- Wendy J Gordon, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, Professor of Law, Boston University, USA This is an immensely helpful and timely volume, richly problematizing the concept of the copy and the act of copying from a variety of perspectives, disciplines and normative commitments, thus clearly establishing the need to think beyond copies as mere instances of economic value in the marketplace of intangibles. Obligatory, rewarding and enjoyable reading for anyone interested in intellectual property and/or its relation to broader cultural concerns. -- Abraham Drassinower, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and Chair in the Legal, Ethical and Cultural Implications of Technological Innovation, University of Toronto, Canada Engaging with a plethora of topics, the discussions here tend to avoid abstract meanderings and opt instead to touch ground and stay there, incorporating and taking seriously empirical data and the details of both legal and artworld practices. This volume ...would be of benefit both to those who are working outside of philosophy but seeking further conceptual clarity on these issues and to those who are working within philosophy but are interested in exploring further potential applications of their work. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * A landmark contribution to the philosophical literature on this subject...This collection of essays is valuable to scholars not only because the essays are of such high quality, but because it demonstrates the rewards to be reaped by such a boldly interdisciplinary approach to its subject. * Philosophy in Review * The volume compiles original essays by not just philosophers, but also scholars working in fields such as art history, communication studies, legal studies, literary studies, media studies, and sociology -- as well as one professional DJ ... While most of the essays are philosophical, the authors do not limit themselves to engaging only with the tradition of analytic -- or even broadly Western -- philosophy. Among the noteworthy achievements of this volume, then, is its truly interdisciplinary nature To sum up: this is a volume of significant merit. It should be read by anyone interested in aesthetic, cultural, ethical, legal, or ontological considerations pertaining to copying, broadly construed. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *

Darren Hudson Hick is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Texas Tech University, USA. He is the author of numerous articles on issues in copyright and the ontology of art and Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (2012). Reinold Schmcker is a Professor of Philosophy at Westflische Wilhelms-Universitt in Mnster, Germany. He is the author of Was ist Kunst? Eine Grundlegung [What Is Art? A Foundation] (1998; Revised Edition, 2014) and editor of several German language collected volumes on aesthetics and the philosophy of art.

List of Figures List of Tables Contributors Preface Part I: The Copying Animal: Exploring the Cultural Value of Copying 1. Copying and the Limits of Substitutability, Dieter Birnbacher 2. Deep Copy Culture, Mark Alfino 3. Imitation and Replication of Technologies: The Prospects for an Evolutionary Ethics of Copying, Wybo Houkes Part II: What is a Copy? Conceptual Perspectives 4. What Is the Object in Which Copyright Can Subsist? An Ontological Analysis, Maria Elisabeth Reicher 5. What Is an Artifact Copy? A Quadrinomial Definition, Amrei Bahr 6. Are Counterfeits Copies?, Massimiliano Carrara 7. The Nature of Copying and the Singular Literary Work, Darren Hudson Hick Part III: The Copying Artist: Aesthetic and Ethical Challenges 8. Illegitimate Legitimate Copies: A Grey Area in Dealing with Literary Works, Annette Gilbert 9. Appropriating Fictional Characters, James O. Young 10. Plagiarizing Nonfiction: Legal Cases, Aesthetic Questions, and the Rules of Copying, David Oels 11. Appropriation and Derogation: When Is It Wrong to Appropriate?, Lisa Jones 12. The Paradox of Style as a Concept of Art, Jan Bcklund 13. Blurred Lines: A Case Study on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Copying, Eberhard Ortland Part IV: Freedom for All? Towards an Ethics of Copying for the Digital Age 14. The Ethics of Copyright and droit dauteur An Outline, Thomas Dreier 15. Self-Copying and Copyright, Lionel Bently 16. Ethical Approaches for Copying Digital Artifacts: What Would the Exemplary Person [junzi] / a Good Person [phronemos] Say?, Charles Ess 17. Ethics, Evolved: An International Perspective on Copying in the Networked Age, Aram Sinnreich 18. Online Piracy and the Transformation of the Audiences Practices: The Case of the Czech Republic, Jakub Macek and Pavel Zahrdka 19. Normative Resources and Domain-specific Principles: Heading for an Ethics of Copying, Reinold Schmcker Coda 20. In Defence of Disco Edits, Hans Nieswandt Index