Copyright, Human Rights, and the Social Function of Property in Brazil

This chapter discusses copyright dynamics under the Brazilian Federal Constitution, which positions human rights at the core of the entire legal system, opening the law to the influence of new international human rights treaties. The protection of property rights, as well as the obligation to fulfil property's social function, are inscribed within such rights, establishing a dynamic between individual and collective interests in proprietary institutions. In this context, how is the constitutional copyright system to be understood and applied in the courts of Brazil? How do proprietary and non-proprietary, economic and social, individual and collective interests, arguments and rationales relate to one another in shaping copyright protection under the Brazilian Constitution? The chapter addresses these questions with a particular focus on two key issues that have recently been faced: the regulation of collective management and the interpretation of limitations. After an explanation of the legal structure supporting copyright in Brazil and a description of the process of constitutionalisation of private law in general, the chapter examines both key issues, with reference to relevant leading cases in the highest courts in Brazil.

Educating Women for Self-Reliance and Economic Opportunity: The Strategic Entrepreneurialism of the Katharine Gibbs Schools, 1911–1968

Established in 1911 as a simple owner-operated commercial school in Providence, Rhode Island, the Katharine Gibbs School expanded over the decades to acquire an international reputation for excellence in secretarial training. This essay examines the origin, development, and ultimate demise of the chain, placing it within the context of the expansion of office work and the growth of clerical education. In presenting a secretarial career as an attractive option for women, the school developed a gender-specific message that was very much in keeping with the vocationalism that became a major component of women's education in both public high schools and proprietary institutions. Promoting the career secretary as a desirable career path for women, Gibbs used class and gender-based marketing to separate itself from competitors. Thriving at a time when educated women had few opportunities, the school declined when the feminist upheavals of the 1960s sparked a new ethos of workplace egalitarianism and widening cultural definitions of self-fulfillment for women.