An Intentional View of the Copyright Work

In this article I consider the questions at the heart of copyright: what is a work and the extent of protection which copyright confers? In so doing I make two central arguments. The first is for an understanding of copyright works oriented around authorial intent, and the second is for a statutory test of infringement that pays closer attention to issues of policy and the authorial acts that copyright rewards. In developing these arguments I revisit two of the central cases of modern English copyright law, Walter v Lane and Interlego v Tyco Industries, and suggest that their reasoning is problematic; Walter v Lane because the transcripts of Lord Rosebery's speeches were not books for copyright purposes, and Interlego because the technical specifications were part of the drawings, which were consequently new artistic works for copyright purposes. This suggestion is supported by contemporary authority - including paradoxically Sawkins v Hyperion Records in which the correctness of both cases was most recently affirmed - and has wider implications for our copyright regime