Homo Noumenon - Intellectual Property Abuse and Kant

In this paper I am discussing an issue whose impact in contemporary society is becoming from day to day more relevant, due to the constant progress of multimedial devices. I am talking of some consequences intellectual property has on human rights. True, human rights pertain to natural law, while intellectual property is part of civil law. I am talking about an oxymoron, however, I am talking about the more and more devastating impact that the exploitation of intellectual property has on individual persons, which alienate the products of their creativity. If it is voluntary, such alienation is generally legitimate, while if it is involuntary, it is always a crime. The diffusion of new technologies has accelerated the rhythm. Today every cell-phone can record voices and images. The notions of author and work of art are in constant development and require adapting to an environment in which technical progress, lawmaking and individual needs are changing too. I am talking of intellectual property abuse in a very wide sense. For intellectual property is not just about alienating the products of one’s thought, it is also about one’s body, one’s voice, one’s cultural tradition. Given that today every cell-phone can take or steal images that can be then posted for profit, the notion of copyright shows implications that go beyond economic issue and invest moral issues such as reputation, attribution, and association, for the work of art must not have consequences upon the author’s integrity and paternity. First and foremost, however, the work of art must not be instrument for external designs. Kant’s words are carved in stone: “a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of morally practical reason, is exalted above any price; for as person (homo noumenon) he is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of others or even to his own ends, but as an end in itself, that is, he possesses dignity (an absolute inner worth), by which he exacts respect for himself from all other rational beings in the world” (MdS, AA 6: 434, 32-435, 3). The paper considers a number of case studies, in which Kant’s homo noumenon is brought into question. In some subliminar cases, which are nonetheless more and more frequent, voluntary intellectual property alienation satisfies the requirements that Roman Law knew under the institute of active slavery. Given that slavery is an ineludible human rights issue, the argument of this paper concludes with the statement that also intellectual property has consequences for human rights.