There are two schools of intellectual property (IP), the Anglo-American and Continental European. What they have in common is their historical origin, copyright stem from feudal law licensing printers to publish books. Censorship and prior restraints were the crux of it. Nowadays publication is legitimate, but information freedom can be seen relatively new concept. When national law systems and legal codifications emerged it meant the end of medieval feudal law and it also points the moment when different national regimes of IP law became more clear and diverge.
One of the commonalities between the two schools is the idea/expression dichotomy: IP protects expressions of ideas, not ideas as such. Both schools also protect inventions (patent), writings (copyright), trademarks, trade secrets, design and models.
But what is the divergence? The Anglo-American school of IP is utilitarian and economic while Continental European focuses to the author´s moral rights, to integrity of the person. Anglo-American contains only limited rights of authors to the integrity of their person as expressed in the work. So there is a common ground but in the Anglo-American school is the economic right of an author highlighted in the expense of their right of personality.
Actually this purely economic perspective has been condemned (also in the US) since it questions freedom of speech. There have been examples of limiting radical satirical critiques of American society. Also state claims hardly at all power over information and enables the private sector to control it. This is not so evident in Europe, there is less contradiction between public and private. The US regime IP is contradictory because it forbids state action which imposes prior restraint on speech and limits restraints on it after publication but at the same time copyright law operates prior restraint on speech.
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