ABSTRACT

This chapter presents three basic ideas: First, there is a strong relation between ideas of "property" and "sovereignty" in Anglo-American law. Second, is a curious reassertion of both national boundaries and territorially premised intellectual property regimes, even as technology makes those borders increasingly porous to information flowing in and out. Finally, the reasons why a unitary concept of intellectual property protection, particularly one based on territorial boundaries, plays an important part in producing not only the conceptual, but also the actual physical spaces of the information age. The chapter seeks to broaden Jessica Litman's critique by extending it. Litman expresses concern for the distributive patterns and politics produced by a legislative scheme skewed too disproportionately and consistently benefit the interests of copyright owners over users of copyrighted materials. It discusses how absolutist view of private property has become disaggregated and relativized. While the relativization has occurred in most areas of property law, the exact opposite is true for intellectual property.