Kim Treiger-Bar-Am (College of Law and Business) has posted Speech, Balance, and a Telos of Respect: Review of Abraham Drassinower's What's Wrong with Copying? (29(1) I.P.J. 11 (2016)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In an analysis of both clarity and depth, Abraham Drassimower calls copyright a right in speech, and justifies it on a rights-based norm. I applaud Drassinower's use of theory of Immanuel Kant to support his analysis. I believe Drassinower can go further with Kant. Kantian theory may be understood to support a view of authorial autonomy of expression. Moreover, Kant pointed to the rights in speech not only of the primary but also the secondary author. Kantian theory can help us to see the necessity of balancing rights in speech of all of the authors involved in a copyright claim. Moreover, while. While I agree with Drassinower's preference for the deontological rights-based model over the instrumentalist model of copyright, we can see copyright as both: it is deontological and aims to yield respect to result in respect, and thus is in accord with both copyright norms.