Abstract

When it comes to works of art, intellectual property rights (IPR) are often argued to be natural rights, for each work of art, so we are told, is the expression of the particular ingenuity of an individual artist. The account of creativity to which such arguments allude, however, is that of Romanticism, so that one may question whether these arguments hold valid for contemporary artistic practices. Thus, this paper will construct a Hegelian justification for IPR that goes along with the Romantic concept of creative work and then assess this justification drawing on the analysis of the modern culture industry by Adorno and Horkheimer. Please note that this paper is a precis of a book chapter.