Appropriation and Transformation

The recent decision in Cariou v. Prince has reinvigorated a pressing issue for the contemporary movement of appropriation art: how can art which is defined by its taking from other artworks hope to survive in the world of copyright? In this article, I consider the legal history leading to the Cariou case, including a series of suits brought against appropriation artist Jeff Koons, as well as strategies proposed by several theorists for accommodating appropriation art within the law. Unfortunately, largely due to vagaries of the law and the misunderstood nature of appropriation art, the matter remains unresolved. I argue that, by investing borrowed material with new ideas, appropriation artists create new expressions and so transform their original sources. Being in line with the Constitutional mandate of copyright law, I suggest that such works of appropriation art be treated as presumptively fair uses

Imposing Duties and Original Appropriation

To justify property rights, two things must be shown. First, the kind of exclusive rights over goods or land that property rights involve must be justified. Second, it must be possible for such property rights to come into being. These are two separate issues. It is one thing to say that it is a good idea for there to be such rights, quite another to say that some person or procedure can bring them about

What Counts as Original Appropriation?

I here defend historical entitlement theories of property rights against a popular charge. This is the objection that such theories fail because no convincing account of original appropriation exists. I argue that this argument assumes a certain reading of historical entitlement theory and I spell out an alternative reading against which it misfires. On this reading, the role of acts of original appropriation is not to justify but to individuate people?s holdings. I argue that we can identify which acts count as original appropriation against the background of a general justification for a practice of property rights. On this view, what I will call „natural? acts of original appropriation are acts by which a person begins to satisfy the general conditions for justified ownership. Finally, I offer an interpretation of John Locke's theory of appropriation along these lines and argue that it provides an attractive reading of his view

Elegy to an Oz Republic: First Steps in a Ceremony of Invocation towards Reconciliation

In 2012 the author completed a series of drawings that, while figurative in form, were structurally based on and derived their inspiration from Robert Motherwell’s abstract series, Elegies to the Spanish Republic (1963-1975). This wholesale 'borrowing', 'quotation' and 'citation' raises the questions addressed in this article. What does it mean to engage in acts of appropriation now? And, more importantly, can such acts of appropriation draw on the spirit of the 'original' work to make a (political) difference? 

On Original Appropriation

http://klinechair.missouri.edu/on-line%20papers/Original%20Appropriation.docLibertarianism holds that agents initially fully own themselves. Lockean libertarianism further holds that agents have the moral power to acquire private property in external things as long as a Lockean Proviso—requiring that “enough and as good” be left for others—is satisfied. Radical right-libertarianism, on the other hand, holds that satisfaction of a Lockean Proviso is not necessary for the appropriation of unowned things. This is sometimes defended on the ground that the initial status of external resources as unowned precludes any role for a Lockean Proviso. I shall show that this is a bad argument. Although I would argue that satisfaction of a Lockean Proviso is indeed a necessary condition for the appropriation of unowned things, I shall not attempt to establish that here. My goal here is more modest: to rebut one argument against the Lockean Proviso

Libertarianism and Original Appropriation Homesteading: Response to Dominiak

What is the ultimate justification for private property rights? How do they first legitimately come into being? Both Dominiak and I reject the usual explanation: they come into existence based upon a grant of executive privilege, based upon the will of the king or the democratic legislature. For this leaves open the issue of why either of them have the right to grant private property rights in the first place. Dominiak claims this is based upon first or prior possession. In the present paper I will criticize that alternative, and defend the John Lockean notion of “mixing labor” with land and natural resources as a means of coming to own them via homesteading.What is the ultimate justification for private property rights? How do they first legitimately come into being? Both Dominiak and I reject the usual explanation: they come into existence based upon a grant of executive privilege, based upon the will of the king or the democratic legislature. For this leaves open the issue of why either of them have the right to grant private property rights in the first place. Dominiak claims this is based upon first or prior possession. In the present paper I will criticize that alternative, and defend the John Lockean notion of “mixing labor” with land and natural resources as a means of coming to own them via homesteading

earthquakes + tsunamis (a poetic diptych)

What follows is pair of found poems created by the practice of mining the writings of other authors to form a new work, a piece of language art. This process shares similarities with postmodern artistic practices including collage, appropriation, sampling, remixing, and repurposing. Source materials for found poems can include other poems, novels, newspaper articles, magazine stories, obituaries, letters—almost anything. For these particular poems, the source materials are academic educational research articles about geological fault zones and earthquakes. The majority of the text in these poems is taken ver- batim from their original articles and used in the order of appear- ance, with a few additions and alterations

Authorised Translations of Electronic Documents

A concept is proposed to extend authorised translations of documents to electronically signed, digital documents. Central element of the solution is an electronic seal, embodied as an XML data structure, which attests to the correctness of the translation and the authorisation of the translator. The seal contains a digital signature binding together original and translated document, thus enabling forensic inspection and therefore legal security in the appropriation of the translation. Organisational aspects of possible implementation variants of electronic authorised translations are discussed and a realisation as a stand-alone web-service is presented.Comment: In: Peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Information Security South Africa (ISSA) 2006 From Insight to Foresight Conference, 5 to 7 July 2006, Sandton, South Afric