Copyright System: Philosophical Underpinnings

Intellectual property and especially copyright system has undergone various developments mirroring the changes in the society. One of the major objectives of the copyright system is to achieve an optimum balance between knowledge creation and dissemination. Maintenance of the balance is especially important for maintenance of the health of the copyright system. Society will only advance when there is an appropriate and continuous flow into the knowledge pool of the society, which replenishes and rejuvenates with fresh inflow of ideas. This maintenance of the balance is achieved through the use of policy tools and law and especially through the formulation of certain standards. These certain common threads and standards may be identified to be running through the copyright system of every nation and are drawn from the philosophical underpinnings of the system. This paper has attempted to analyze those underpinnings thus providing a basis of the copyright system and providing the basis for the functions it fulfills in the society