{"id":41190,"date":"2026-02-25T22:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/osgoode\/iposgoode\/?p=41190"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:38:21","slug":"copyrights-edges-and-the-ethics-of-expression-in-the-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/osgoode\/iposgoode\/2026\/02\/25\/copyrights-edges-and-the-ethics-of-expression-in-the-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright\u2019s Edges and the Ethics of Expression in the Digital Age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflections on Jessica Silbey's 2026 Grafstein Lecture in Communications<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

By Xiang Zhang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.\u201d With this stark provocation, Theodor W. Adorno<\/a> articulated not a prohibition on artistic expression, but a profound ethical challenge to culture itself: how can expression remain meaningful in the aftermath of catastrophe, and what conditions must exist for culture to serve as a site of witness, critique, and hope? It was this philosophical tension\u2014between the fragility and necessity of expression\u2014that framed Professor Jessica Silbey<\/a>\u2019s 2026 Graftstein Lecture in Communications<\/a> at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Like Adorno, Silbey\u2019s inquiry was animated by a concern with the conditions under which expression remains possible, and by the recognition that cultural and legal structures can either sustain or foreclose the emancipatory potential of art, knowledge, and communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silbey\u2019s central thesis is that contemporary copyright law is undergoing a gradual but profound transformation. Doctrines historically designed to facilitate the circulation of ideas and preserve the public domain are increasingly weakened, enabling the commodification and enclosure of knowledge, facts, and expressive fragments. Where copyright once functioned as a structural safeguard for expressive freedom, it now frequently operates as a mechanism for proprietary control, allowing private actors to assert ownership over the fundamental materials of communication. In this respect, Silbey\u2019s critique closely parallels Adorno\u2019s broader diagnosis of modern culture: both identify systemic forces that transform culture from a domain of human freedom into an instrument of economic rationality, commodification, and control. In both accounts, culture\u2019s emancipatory function is displaced by the logic of ownership and monetization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silbey situated this doctrinal and cultural transformation within the broader political context of the contemporary United States, emphasizing that artistic and expressive practices are essential forms of democratic witness, particularly during periods of political instability and crisis. Expression, she argued, is not merely aesthetic but ethical; it enables individuals and communities to bear witness to injustice, preserve memory, and imagine alternative futures. The fundamental purpose of copyright law, therefore, must be to facilitate, rather than frustrate, this expressive function. Yet, as Silbey observed, copyright law, once a \u201cpublic domain protecting doctrine\u201d is now suffering from what she described as a \u201cdeath by a thousand cuts\u201d: a gradual erosion driven by expanding proprietary claims, restrictive licensing regimes, and doctrinal narrowing. Echoing Marx\u2019s metaphor of capital as a vampire sustained by extraction, Silbey suggested that contemporary copyright increasingly survives through the extraction of control over culture itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To illustrate this erosion, Silbey anchored her lecture in three foundational doctrines of copyright law: the exclusion of facts from copyrightability, the de minimis defense, and personal use liberties. These doctrines, deeply rooted in both common law and transnational copyright traditions, have historically functioned as structural limits on copyright\u2019s reach, preserving the public domain and ensuring the continued circulation of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first doctrine, the exclusion of facts from copyright protection, reflects the foundational principle that facts belong to the public domain. Although this principle was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.<\/em><\/a>, Silbey argued that the decision oversimplified the nature of facts by characterizing them as merely \u201cdiscovered\u201d rather than socially produced. Drawing on the history of journalism and scientific inquiry, she emphasized that facts are constructed through institutional processes of verification, expertise, and consensus. This insight carries profound contemporary implications, as private entities increasingly assert proprietary claims over data, technical standards, and functional information. Silbey pointed to examples such as insurance companies asserting copyright over climate risk assessments, private organizations licensing building codes incorporated into law, and manufacturers restricting access to repair manuals for essential technologies. These practices represent not merely legal disputes but a broader cultural shift toward the privatization of knowledge, threatening public safety, scientific progress, and democratic accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second doctrine, the de minimis defense, historically permitted courts to dismiss claims involving trivial or insignificant copying, recognizing that expressive communication necessarily involves reference, quotation, and reuse. Silbey argued that this doctrine has been significantly weakened in the digital age. Courts increasingly subject even minor uses to complex fair use analyses, raising the costs and risks of expression. At the same time, industry practices have normalized pervasive licensing, transforming even incidental uses into licensable events. The result is a cultural environment in which expressive practices once understood as ordinary and permissible are now subject to proprietary surveillance and control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The erosion of personal use liberties represents perhaps the most profound transformation identified by Silbey. Historically, ownership of physical copies conferred broad autonomy, enabling individuals to lend, resell, preserve, and adapt cultural works. The transition to digital distribution has replaced ownership with conditional licensing, fundamentally altering the relationship between individuals and culture. Through cases such as Capitol Records v. ReDigi<\/em><\/a>, American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo<\/em><\/a>, and Hachette v. Internet Archive<\/em><\/a>, courts have narrowed the scope of personal use, treating activities once understood as legitimate cultural participation as acts of infringement. As Silbey observed, practices central to cultural life: reading, sharing, preserving, and referencing, are increasingly framed as morally and legally suspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silbey concluded her lecture by invoking Jessica Litman\u2019s observation that personal use is not incidental but central to copyright\u2019s constitutional purpose. Copyright was never intended to prohibit engagement with culture, but to facilitate it. The freedom to read, share, and build upon existing works is essential to cultural vitality and democratic life. The erosion of these freedoms reflects not merely doctrinal change, but a broader transformation in how culture itself is governed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this light, Silbey\u2019s lecture returns us to the ethical question posed by Adorno\u2019s opening provocation. Adorno\u2019s warning that \u201cto write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric\u201d was ultimately a reflection on the fragility of expression in the face of systemic forces that threaten to render culture hollow, commodified, and incapable of bearing witness. Silbey\u2019s critique suggests that contemporary copyright law risks producing a parallel condition, not through violence, but through enclosure. When facts become property, fragments become licensable, and personal engagement becomes suspect, the structural conditions necessary for expression itself begin to erode. In defending these doctrinal edges, Silbey ultimately affirms that artistic expressive practices remain indispensable forms of democratic witness, and that copyright law itself bears a profound responsibility to preserve the structural conditions that enable such witnessing, by safeguarding access to knowledge, protecting the public domain, and ensuring that the legal framework governing culture facilitates, rather than forecloses expression, during periods of political instability and crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Xiang Zhang<\/strong> is a doctoral student at Osgoode Hall Law School and an IP Osgoode Research Fellow, with a strong interest in advancing open-source and open access to knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silbey\u2019s central thesis is that contemporary copyright law is undergoing a gradual but profound transformation. 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