(Intellectual) property and sovereignty: Notes toward a cultural geography of authorship

Keith Aoki discusses the challenge that the rise of digital information technology poses to traditional legal conceptions of property. He chronicles the evolution of the idea of ''property'' and its relationship to ''sovereignty'' in Anglo-American law. In contrast to developments in other areas of property law, the legal characterization and protection of intellectual property rights maintain a sharp boundary between public and private, a division counter to early understandings of copyright law. Professor Aoki locates the origins of this division in a deeply embedded image of originary romantic authorship, which is evoked to justify rights in information itself As information flows more freely across borders, supranational sovereignty over information erodes traditional, territorial notions of sovereignty. Professor Aoki calls attention to the flaws in our current maps of intellectual property and concludes that reimagining the regulation of digital information flows will shape both the conceptual and the physical geography of the information age.