Author's right as property: Old and new theories

There are a certain number of rights which, though to some extent different in detail, all have this essential quality, in common, that they do not apply to external, material objects, but to internal, spiritual, or rather intellectual values or products. To my mind no term can be found to characterize the essence of these rights better and more centrally than "intellectual property." As I shall endeavour to show, it has hitherto been an error to keep these rights apart from the sphere of property law and regard them as an entirely special kind of rights. This error has to some extent been due to the fact that the research of the true nature and extent of the right of property has been neglected. On due examination these rights will be found to have in reality the same economic and legal effects as the rights of property in the external material objects; essentially, the two kinds of property rights involve the same fundamental problems.(1)