Maria Mercedes Frabboni

Dr Maria Mercedes Frabboni is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex, based in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology. Her expertise lies at the intersection of intellectual-property law, creative-industries regulation, and economic analysis, with particular focus on copyright, collective licensing, fashion law, and art law.

Education

• Ph.D. in Law, 2009 – Queen Mary, University of London
• LL.M., 2003 – University of Hamburg, Germany
• Specialist degree in Economics, 2004 – Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy
• Bachelor degree in Economics, 2002 – Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy

Research Interests

Dr Frabboni’s scholarship centres on the legal and economic dimensions of creativity and cultural production. She interrogates how copyright frameworks shape the music, fashion and visual-art sectors, paying close attention to the governance of collecting societies, the plight of vulnerable or orphan works, and the commercial magnetism of athletes’ image rights. Her comparative approach spans EU, UK and Italian jurisdictions, and she frequently integrates insights from competition economics to illuminate policy dilemmas.

Publication Trends

Across more than thirty outputs since 2007, her work has evolved from foundational analyses of collective rights management and moral rights in France and Italy, to cutting-edge questions raised by digital technologies, child authors, and climate impacts of creative industries. A recurrent theme is the balance between exclusive rights and access imperatives, examined through monographs, journal articles, policy reports, and practitioner-oriented commentaries.

Scientific Awards & Fellowships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), 2013
• Member, AHRC Peer Review College
• Executive Committee Member & Honorary Treasurer, British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association (BLACA)
• Founding member, European Intellectual Property Teachers’ Network (EIPTN)

Advising & Grants

Dr Frabboni welcomes PhD supervision in intellectual-property law and creative-industries policy. While specific grant awards are not detailed in the supplied text, her membership in the AHRC Peer Review College signals ongoing engagement with UK research-council funding streams. She has also led or contributed to AHRC- and IPO-funded studies on copyright simplification and orphan works.

Labs, Networks & Teams

She is embedded in several scholarly communities: the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association (where she sits on the Executive Committee), the European Intellectual Property Teachers’ Network, and wider Sussex Law School research clusters addressing regulation, culture and technology. Her ORCID (0000-0003-3293-1849) links a comprehensive scholarly profile and facilitates open-access dissemination.