This chapter analyses limitations to parties’ freedom of contract as to the negotiation and formation stage of the contracts under review, that are aimed at remedying situations where musicians grant excessive rights to corporate partners. These limitations seek to ensure that such contracts have a ‘fair scope’. As yet, awaiting potential EU harmonisation of authorship and initial ownership, there are no relevant harmonising rules at the EU level. Instead, focus lies with restrictions under national law. First, objectionable precontractual behaviour may be sanctioned by precontractual liability, giving right to damages. Subsequently, the requirement of consent is subject to certain requirements. Third, the law limits parties’ freedom as to the scope of rights that may be transferred or licensed and provides tools to determine this scope in practice. Finally, the chapter turns to the negotiation and formation stage of secondary contractual relationships that may arise once the initial contract has been entered into. It concludes with an overview of the main findings.

This chapter is largely devoted to commenting on the other contributions to the volume.An attempt is made to evaluate the arguments and criticisms brought to bear by each contributor on the project of defining civil liberty not as absence of interference but rather in neo-Roman terms as absence of more general conditions of subjection and dependence. The chapter opens with an exposition of the neo-Roman theory, focusing on its articulation in Roman and common law traditions of thinking about the law of persons and related arguments about ‘fundamental’ rights and liberties. The chapter next defends the distinctiveness and coherence of the neo Roman approach against a number of objection that have been raised against it. The chapter ends by reflecting on how the re-appropriation and development of a neo-Roman perspective might help us to think more fruitfully about some current threats to privacy and democracy as well as individual liberty. This concluding section focuses particularly on threats stemming from increasing surveillance and other silent exercises of power.

In this chapter, I argue that while the scope of copyright protection of graffiti and street art may be on the whole, fairly easily ascertainable and may offer a desirable level of protection to their authors, the rights of the public with respect to graffiti and street art remain fragmented, somewhat unclear and likely too limited. This finding gives a sobering account of the extent to which Canadian copyright law succeeds in adequately addressing competing interests, such as where allowances for communication and access between the graffiti or street artist, their work of art and the public should be at their highest. I refer to “graffiti” for writings depicted in public spaces and to “street art” as a more general term encompassing graffiti and any other form of visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, structure, object) located in public spaces. I refer to neither graffiti or street art with a connotation of legality or illegality and I will specifically refer to their (il)legality as the context may dictate from time to time.