Perhaps my lawyers, or NDPR's, should be concerned. And according to the quoted argument, this constitutes a prima facie infringement. I have, of course, just quoted - which is to say copied - this summary of Hick's argument from Hick's book itself. (5) though copyright is a natural right, it is not thus an absolute right, and what qualifies as a nonviolating use (copying) of an author's copyrighted work depends on some interest or right of the user outweighing the natural right of copyright (164-165). (4) copying another author's work (where the properties of the new item are shared with and depend on those of the preexisting work) without permission constitutes prima facie infringement and (3) this creative activity and the nature of the work give rise to the author's ownership of the authored work - a natural right to determine the conditions under which that work can be copied (2) this creative activity determines the nature of that work (in general, an authored work is a type instantiable in multiple tokens) (1) an author of a work is one who has and exercises the power of selecting and arranging elements as constitutive of that work The book's main line of thought begins in Chapter 3, and it goes, in outline, like this (with my comments in brackets): This sets up a broader discussion in Chapter 2 about the relationship among artistic practice, philosophy, and copyright law, which regulates and incentivizes certain artistic practices, and makes certain ontological and ethical conclusions. More interesting to me was Hick's observation that some takings are illegal but not immoral (think of a short sample of a drum break), while others - like biologists' use of Henrietta Lacks' cells - are immoral but not illegal. Chapter 1 offers examples ranging from Shia LeBeouf to blues music, hip-hop culture to college plagiarism, to make a point that I doubt will surprise anyone willing to read a book-length study on copyright and appropriation: namely, that while artistic making has long been bound up with artistic taking, "remix culture" seems to have accelerated with modern technology. The next two chapters are similarly introductory. First comes an Introduction devoted to Hick's terrific cover image: commercial artist Mick Haggerty's mash-up of Mondrian and Mickey Mouse - an example I would have loved Hick to reconsider at the end of the book as a test of his account of what appropriation is appropriate. Somewhat disconcertingly, the agenda-setting passage above doesn't appear until page 48. This, then, is the agenda for Hick's book, or at least most of it. (1) the nature of the works in question, (2) the relationship of the author to the work, (3) the rights of the author and how they arise from this relationship, (4) the relationship holding between the original work and the potentially infringing work, and (5) the rights of nonauthors - if any - with regard to a given work (48). Hick's central question - Is it wrong for one work to copy another? - requires him to consider five "interdependent metaphysical and ethical issues" within "the institutional, cultural, and legal framework of intellectual property" (48). But deciding exactly what lessons the law, with its own distinctive interests, should take away from an account like Hick's - focused as it is on philosophical clarity and responsiveness to current artistic practice - is itself a philosophically interesting question, and one I wish Hick's book went even further in answering. Hick's account of copyright is sometimes descriptive, sometimes revisionary, and thus has something to teach lawyers as well. Philosophers of art who care about artistic practice can learn, not only from Hick's rich and varied examples, but also from his account of one of the great forces shaping that practice. His new book has a lot to teach philosophers about how the law both protects authors' rights and limits them, often to protect others who want to sample, quote, adapt, or appropriate existing works within their own. Darren Hudson Hick is a rarity: a sophisticated philosopher of art who understands and cares about the law.
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