Beyond The Doctrine: Intellectual Property as Labor Law

Join ACS for a Beyond the Doctrine talk with Professor Xiyin Tang, a series that explores open questions within current legal doctrine.

Professor Tang will discuss how intellectual property law has traditionally centered creative outputs rather than creators, and how that doctrinal focus shapes bargaining power, compensation, and firm concentration in creative markets. Drawing on her article Intellectual Property as Labor Law, she explores what it would mean to understand IP as allocating rights between workers and firms, much like labor law, and how this perspective brings into focus open questions in IP doctrine, particularly as generative AI alters the conditions of creative production.