CIPIL Evening Seminar: 'The "Work" in United Kingdom Copyright Law after Brexit'

Speaker: Professor Jonathan Griffiths, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London 

Abstract: I have previously argued that copyright law in the UK has become increasingly “dematerialised” (that is, to have come to be organised around a model of property in which the “work” is envisaged as an abstract or immaterial form of property). I have suggested that the process has been accelerated by European copyright harmonisation and has significantly affected the development of the law relating to subsistence and infringement of copyright. In this paper, I revisit this argument in the light of (1) recent UK case law and (2) Brexit. In particular, I consider whether Judgments on the issues of copyright subsistence, recording, authorship and infringement support the “dematerialisation” argument previously advanced.

Biography: Jonathan Griffiths is Professor of Intellectual Property Law. His main research interests are in copyright law (particularly United Kingdom, European and comparative copyright law) and in the relationship between intellectual property law and fundamental rights. He has written widely in both of these areas. With Professor Tuomas Mylly, he edited Global Intellectual Property Protection and New Constitutionalism: Hedging Exclusive Rights (OUP:2021).  His current work is focused on (i) the concept of property in intellectual property law (particularly in copyright and unregistered trade mark law) and (ii) the relationship between freedom of expression and trade mark law.  He is the editor of the “United Kingdom” chapter of the leading international treatise on "International Copyright Law & Practice" (ed B Ong) and is a member of the editorial/advisory boards of the Journal of Media Law, the Media & Arts Law Review and the Nottingham Law Journal. He is interested in copyright policy and reform and has been consulted on copyright policy by a number of public bodies. He is a member of the European Copyright Society, a group of scholars founded with the aim of creating a platform for critical and independent scholarly thinking on European copyright law. The Society has published several widely-read policy proposals.

This event is a hybrid event. To attend online you must register via Zoom.