Popular Culture Review 30.2
to proliferate , to proliferate indefinitely . The truth is quite the contrary : the author ... does not precede the works ; he is a certain functional principle ... by which one impedes the free circulation , the free manipulation , the free composition , decomposition , and recomposition [ sic ] of fiction .
Every university student�regardless of major�is exposed to the Foucauldian death-of-the-author philosophy as if it is a given . In the remainder of this article , however , I will explain how the dead author claptrap is directly contrary to copyright tenets , as well as the basic principles of a free and thriving society .
Note first that these precepts heralded by Foucault directly conflict with the very intent and spirit of the Copyright Act : works of creativity and originality are opposite to functional works , which are governed by the Patent Act , pursuant to a completely different structure and set of rules that protect useful inventions . Moreover , the “ free manipulation ” of fictional ( and other original works ) is clearly contrary to the exclusivity provisions in the Copyright Act�that authors should have ultimate control over creative work they produce . Regardless , Foucault goes even further , calling “ for a form of culture in which fiction would not be limited by the figure of the author ” and stating that , when we effectively kill the author , all writings / discourses would “ develop in the anonymity of a murmur . It will not make a difference who is speaking . Others are free to appropriate the discourse for themselves .”
The result of the Foucauldian assault on authors is that our time-honored notions of individual authorship have been abnegated to this amorphous , collective notion of common ,
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