Commentary on The Concept of Authorship in Comparative Copyright Law: A Brief Illustration

Abstract:     
This piece is a commentary on Professor Jane C. Ginsburg's 5th Annual Niro Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture: The Concept of Authorship in Comparative Copyright Law, 52 DePaul Law Review 1063 (2003). In her Article, Professor Ginsburg attempts to stimulate discussion of who is an author in copyright law by positing Six Principles. I find her multi-faceted approach to be an extremely useful way of contemplating the authorship issue, an issue that I agree has been largely overlooked in both the copyright jurisprudence and literature in the United States and elsewhere. In this commentary, I explore the Dead Sea Scrolls litigation in the context of Professor Ginsburg's multi-faceted approach to authorship, and argue that her approach would support a finding of authorship in this situation. I conclude that the issues with which Professor Ginsburg grapples require further exploration of the psychological and spiritual dimensions of the creative process.

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