Considering the focus that has been put on unconsciousness thus far, I thought it would be interesting to delve into these two concepts of unconsciousness and explore the similarities and possible interactions between them.

Copyright law emerged as a reasonable response to the cries that authors should have a right over their creations, to protect and enjoy the fruits of their labour. However, this justification falls short when we start to consider whether the consensus that authors should be entitled to their creations is truly legitimate. While intuitive, without more, it implies that copyright law is human nature given legal effect, authorised by human nature. 

The human instinct to claim something as “ours” transcends law and logic – it is instinctual, almost savage. Possibly, the feeling of entitlement to ownership over one’s creations may be attributed to the investment of labour which generates a sense of possession. But the question as to why the former breeds the latter is still left unanswered. This begs for there to be something that precedes the act of creation which imbues it with the essence of ownership, to affirm that copyright law is founded in something more than mere savagery. 

Indeed, Freud argues that the assumption of an unconscious psychical state within our human minds is necessary and legitimate to explain unconscious mental acts like parapraxis. Rose appears to echo this in defining the “unconscious of copyright law” as being partly constituted by the paternity metaphor. He embarks to justify copyright law through implying a paternal relationship between author and book – the book being birthed by the author as his “brain child”. Even so, the paternalistic sentiment an author may feel towards his book behaves as more of an observation of fact rather than an explanation of the human mind.

Perhaps the desire to own, enjoy and have something to call “ours” is so deeply entrenched in human nature that it must simply be presupposed. Without such a presupposition, it would otherwise be difficult to see any correlation between an author-book relationship and the finding of the author’s entitlement over the book. Therefore, before the “unconscious of copyright law” can come into existence, one must first acknowledge the unconsciousness of the human mind.

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