Regulatory failure of copyright law through the lenses of autopoietic systems theory

Abstract

The article explores the mechanisms that led to the current crisis of copyright law in the digital environment (understood as its inability to regulate social dynamics as regards the production, dissemination and access to creative works) by applying the concept of law as an autopoietic system. It analyses how the copyright regime (a subsystem of the legal system) evolved over time, by scrutinizing the interdependencies between copyright law and the other constitutive systems of its environment: the creative system (concerned with the creation, reproduction, distribution and access to creative works), the political system (comprising both the State and the Church), the economic system (ruled by right holders and intermediaries on the market for creative works) and the technological system.