A new paper in the CREATe Working Paper series is now available: Photographic Copyright and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in Historical Perspective by Elena Cooper and Sheona Burrow. Elena Cooper is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Copyright Law, History and Policy and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. Sheona Burrow is Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Part time).
The paper provides an in-depth case study of the enforcement of copyright in photographs by some contemporary rights-owners: freelance professional photographers who derive income from the exploitation of photographic copyright. Referring to the theoretical framework of Guido Calabresi and A Douglas Melamed, the article reflects on the implications for the nature and function of copyright in a specific context today. It explores contemporary experience alongside the enforcement of copyright by professional photographers in the past (the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries), noting the influence of the bureaucratisation of copyright exploitation (i.e. exploitation through picture libraries) on legal decision making in a particular forum today: the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court Small Claims Track.
The full abstract and downloadable paper can be accessed from here: Photographic Copyright and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in Historical Perspective