Fair Use and the Fairer Sex: Gender, Feminism, and Copyright Law

41 Pages Posted: 18 May 2006

See all articles by Ann Bartow

Ann Bartow

Franklin Pierce Center for IP at UNH Law

Abstract

Copyright laws are written and enforced to help certain groups of people assert and retain control over the resources generated by creative productivity. Because those people are predominantly male, the copyright infrastructure plays a role, largely unexamined by legal scholars, in helping to sustain the material and economic inequality between women and men. This essay considers some of the ways in which gender issues and copyright laws intersect, proposes a feminist critique of the copyright legal regime which advocates low levels of copyright protections, and asserts the importance of considering the social and economic disparities between women and men when evaluating the impacts and performance of intellectual property laws.

Keywords: Copyright, intellectual property, gender, women, feminism

JEL Classification: K1, K2, K3, K4, K10, K30, K19, K49

Suggested Citation

Bartow, Ann, Fair Use and the Fairer Sex: Gender, Feminism, and Copyright Law. American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=902632

Ann Bartow (Contact Author)

Franklin Pierce Center for IP at UNH Law ( email )

Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
United States

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