Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Values in the Internet Age

Jessica Silbey will speak at Yale University on her book Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Values in the Internet Age on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. The event will be held from 12:10pm-1:30pm and is cosponsored by Yale Journal of Technology & Law (YJoLT).

When first written into the US Constitution, IP aimed to facilitate ‘progress of science and the useful arts’ by granting rights to authors and inventors. Today, when rapid technological evolution accompanies growing wealth inequality and political and social divisiveness, the constitutional goal of “progress” may pertain to more basic, human values, redirecting IP’s emphasis to the commonwealth instead of private interests. Against Progress considers contemporary debates about IP law as concerning the relationship between the constitutional mandate of progress and fundamental values, such as equality, privacy, and distributive justice, that are increasingly challenged in today’s internet age. Following a legal analysis of various IP cases, Silbey examines the experiences of everyday creators and innovators navigating ownership, sharing, and sustainability within the internet eco-system and current IP laws. Crucially, the book encourages refiguring the substance of ‘progress’ and the function of IP in terms that demonstrate the urgency of art and science to social justice today.