Ethics and Information Technology 14 (2):109-121 (2012)
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Abstract |
This paper argues that intellectual property rights are incompatible with Rawls’s principles of justice. This conclusion is based upon an analysis of the social stratification that emerges as a result of the patent mechanism which defines a marginalized group and ensure that its members remain alienated from the rights, benefits, and freedoms afforded by the patent product. This stratification is further complicated, so I argue, by the copyright mechanism that restricts and redistributes those rights already distributed by means of the patent mechanism. I argue that the positions of privilege established through both the patent and the copyright mechanisms are positions that do not “allow the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all.” They do not “benefit the least advantaged.” Nor are they “open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.” In making this argument I critically assess the utilitarian defense of intellectual property rights and find it insufficient to respond to the injustices manifest in our current arrangement for the protection of intellectual property rights
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Keywords | Intellectual property rights Rawls Principles of justice Patent Copyright |
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DOI | 10.1007/s10676-012-9288-8 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Morality of Software Piracy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. [REVIEW]W. R. Swinyard, H. Rinne & A. Keng Kau - 1990 - Journal of Business Ethics 9 (8):655 - 664.
Clearing the Rubbish: Locke, the Waste Proviso, and the Moral Justification of Intellectual Property.Gordon Hull - 2009 - Public Affairs Quarterly 23 (1):67-93.
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