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Séminaire d’économie de Bordeaux

Julien Penin

(Univ. Strasbourg)

Personality, creativity and adherence to intellectual property: A lab experiment on copyright

Abstract:

This paper aims to experimentally test the personalist rationale of copyright, which posits that intellectual property is morally justified because creative activity is the intimate extension of creator’s personality and skills into the external world. To test this theory, we have designed a theft game where participants are given the opportunity to steal or refrain from stealing creative outputs which vary in their degree of « personality ». We can therefore examine how the intrinsic adherence of people to copyright differs according to the intensity of the “personality” component that is included into a piece of art. Our results present a mixed picture, indicating a treatment effect only among participants who have a strong preference for intellectual property rights. To our knowledge, this work is the first to experimentally test the personalist theory of intellectual property. The implications of our findings shed light on the phenomenon known as “IP polarization” and might contribute to ongoing debates on intellectual property policy, for instance about the protection of creations generated by non-human entities (i.e. artificial intelligence).