Hegel's Theory Of Personality Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Georg Friedrich Wilemls Hegel’s theory of personality can be used to justify protection of a work under copyright law against John Locke’s theory of labour. Hegel’s theory is centered on the concept of free will and personality of an individual and, according to him intellectual property is the way by which individuals distinguish themselves from one another. Property allows individuals to exercise their subjective freedom. Every intellectual property contains the aspect of personality of the owner that is distinct from any other and the same entitles them to enjoy right over that property. He is of the view that a creative work is “the embodiment of the creator’s personality”. The uniqueness of a work comes from the personality

When an author comes up with a creative work literary artistic or otherwise a glance of his personal trait can be seen in the work which cannot be found in any other work. This extension of the personhood of the author in his work is what makes it eligible for copyright which, further brings more work into the domain of copyright and furthermore, incentivizes authors to create more work. On one hand application of personality theory creates incentive for more work to be created, on the other hand it also disincentives authors form putting their work in the market as there are chances that it may be copied and with the argument of personality theory by a copier the original author would not be able to enjoy the negative right over his own work, once it has been proved that the copied work contains the personal traits of its author. This lead to rendering Loke’s labour theory invalid which my prevent authors from creating work with investing their labour, skill and capital, as it would not enable them to enjoy the negative rights against the society that the copyright law provides for. The author arguing Hegel’s personality theory could argue that they themselves have also invested labour, skill and capital although lesser than the original author, but their work is an extension of their will and personhood. However, there are problems that may arise for the application of personality theory the first being recognition of will of the author by others and rights of the author such as alienation of the property. According to Hegel, the work must reflect the personal traits of the author and the same must be recognized by the society further, he says that, will and personal traits are inherent to an individual and they do not have the right to alienate their property. And, the problem does not end there today only arguing that a copied work is