Post-modernism and

Tara explained a layman's view of post-modern literary theory to me today (as opposed to the more philosophical version which has been claimed to assert that 'truth is dead'), and it occurred to me that the post-modernists' ideas on authorship can shed some light on the borders of an ideal intellectual property regime. Post-modernists assert that there are no new stories--everything written today is merely rearrangement of old plotline concepts, coupled with new words. As such, authorship as it is currently defined becomes an absurd concept--under this framework, the "author" is less like a brilliant composer than a day-wage arranger. This perfectly parallels patent law, where ideas are sacred but the expression of those ideas is eligeable for legal protection. Copyright is similar, but less pure in its separation of ideas and the expression of those ideas (Plato's terminology becomes useful here, so I shall refer to 'forms' and 'shadows' respectively herein).
Recently, however, as intellectual property rights have expanded, protection has been afforded increasingly to ideas themselves. Given the parallel to post-modernism's authorship problem, the dangers of overextending IP rights becomes clear. If all literature is based off a limited set of forms, then protecting the virtually unlimited set of shadows makes sense. Broadening the scope of copyrights, however, means that the forms themselves, and all shadows (or 'derivative works') become off-limits. This, combined with copyright-holders' resistance to compulsory licensing schemes whereby those wishing to create shadows of copywritten forms were guaranteed the right to do so at standard rates, means that whole categories of shadows are simply never created, and society loses. While it was an (admittedly brilliant) parody, the press release of Metallica suing all those who used the chords E and F in order allows a glimpse of what a further expansion of copyright might do in an age where protection is afforded to forms themselves.

--Ari