Copyright's Media Theory and the Internet

Intellectual Property Law for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Approaches (B. Courtney Daogoo, Mistrale Goudreau, Madelaine, Saginur, and Theresa Scassa, eds., 2014)

19 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2014 Last revised: 21 Nov 2017

See all articles by Jon Penney

Jon Penney

Osgoode Hall Law School; Harvard University - Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society; Citizen Lab, University of Toronto

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

Despite copyright’s expansion into new online spheres and technological contexts, and the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of copyright scholarship, intellectual property scholars, particularly those interested in digital copyright, have offered little exploration of methodology and methodological issues, and scholarship offers even fewer methodological investigations and debates. This area of Internet related legal research remains, like others, without established “texts, theories, and methodologies.” This chapter aims to address some of that void, by offering an exploration of the problems that can arise when applying certain legal doctrines to online contexts, through a case study of the “chilling effects doctrine” — a legal doctrine that holds that certain laws and regulatory schemes can “chill” or deter people from engaging in certain kinds of legal (and possibly desirable) activities — as its emergence or “transplantation” into debates about copyright enforcement online. The case study provides a helpful point of entry into a broader methodological discussion about applying legal norms to media. Specifically, the author draws on insights from other disciplines and research fields to unpack and scrutinize the chilling effects doctrine and it methodological, empirical, and normative assumptions.

Keywords: copyright, chilling effects, copyright theory, media theory, computer mediated communications

JEL Classification: Q34

Suggested Citation

Penney, Jonathon, Copyright's Media Theory and the Internet (2013). Intellectual Property Law for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Approaches (B. Courtney Daogoo, Mistrale Goudreau, Madelaine, Saginur, and Theresa Scassa, eds., 2014), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2405732

Jonathon Penney (Contact Author)

Osgoode Hall Law School ( email )

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

Harvard University - Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society ( email )

Harvard Law School
23 Everett, 2nd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Citizen Lab, University of Toronto ( email )

Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3K7
Canada

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