Book Roundtable: Jessica Silbey--The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators, and Everyday Intellectual Property

Are innovation and creativity helped or hindered by our intellectual property laws? In the two hundred plus years since the Constitution enshrined protections for those who create and innovate, we're still debating the merits of IP laws and whether or not they actually work as intended. Artists, scientists, businesses, and the lawyers who serve them, as well as the Americans who benefit from their creations all still wonder: what facilitates innovation and creativity in our digital age? And what role, if any, do our intellectual property laws play in the growth of innovation and creativity in the United States? 

 

Incentivizing the "progress of science and the useful arts" has been the goal of intellectual property law since our constitutional beginnings.The Eureka Myth cuts through the current debates and goes straight to the source: the artists and innovators themselves. Silbey makes sense of the intersections between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity by centering on the stories told by artists, scientists, their employers, lawyers and managers, describing how and why they create and innovate and whether or how IP law plays a role in their activities. Their employers, business partners, managers, and lawyers also describe their role in facilitating the creative and innovative work. Silbey's connections and distinctions made between the stories and statutes serve to inform present and future innovative and creative communities. 

 

Breaking new ground in its examination of the U.S. economy and cultural identity, The Eureka Myth draws out new and surprising conclusions about the sometimes misinterpreted relationships between creativity and intellectual property protections.

 

The book analyzes and elaborates upon a qualitative empirical study of artists, scientists, engineers, lawyers and businesspeople that investigates the motivations and mechanisms of creative and innovative activity in everyday professional life. Based on over fifty face-to-face interviews, the book centers on the stories told by interviewees describing how and why they create and innovate and whether or how IP law plays a role in their activities. The goal of the empirical project was to figure out how IP actually works in creative and innovative fields, as opposed to how we think or say it works (through formal law or legislative debate). Breaking new ground in its qualitative method examining the economic and cultural system of creative and innovative production, The Eureka Myth draws out new and surprising conclusions about the sometimes misinterpreted relationships between creativity, invention and intellectual property protections. - See more at: http://www.patenttruth.org/event/luncheon-eureka-myth-creators-innovators-and-everyday-intellectual-property#sthash.jvvzqBlH.dpufSilbey is a professor of law at Suffolk University Law School.