Combining philosophical and historical perspectives, this book focuses on the rise of a legal institution that has dominated the economy of knowledge ever since it burst onto the scene at the dawn of modernity in the heartlands of Europe. From the age of print to the age of networks and disruptive technologies, this book explores the place of copyright amid the various conceptual transformations it has undergone over time. Uniquely, it presents an in-depth philosophical treatment of the cultural history of copyright from its beginnings to the present. Although copyright is a central topic, the content is by no means limited to it. The main question the author seeks to answer is: how do legal institutions emerge and how do they evolve over time? Though copyright is a wonderful example for tackling this question, a selection of other institutions, such as the social practice of promising in eighteenth-century Britain, are also addressed at considerable length. What the author has managed to show in this book is that the transformations which modern law has undergone since the eighteenth century are inextricably linked to those which have shaped the modern subject to the core. Law forms part of those great schemes of intelligibility that allow us to understand ourselves better. We need to delve deep into the multiple layers of culture if we want to fully understand how the morphology and cultural archaeology of our legal institutions intertwine.
Can a free press survive in an era of free content? An “entertaining and well-written” examination of copyright law, its history, and its purpose (New York Law Journal). You can’t copyright facts, but is news a category unto itself? Without legal protection for the “ownership” of news, what incentive does a news organization have to invest in producing quality journalism that serves the public good? Can a free press survive in the era of free content? This book explores the intertwined histories of journalism and copyright law in the United States and Great Britain, revealing how shifts in technology, government policy, and publishing strategy have shaped the media landscape. Publishers have long sought to treat news as exclusive to protect their investments against copying or “free riding.” But over the centuries, arguments about the vital role of newspapers and the need for information to circulate have made it difficult to defend property rights in news. Beginning with the earliest printed news publications and ending with the Internet, Will Slauter traces these countervailing trends, offering a fresh perspective on debates about copyright and efforts to control the flow of news. “A well-written, thoughtful book, demonstrating how copyright law has struggled to keep up with the development of news culture, setting out the historical context in great detail and supported by much research, and with interesting conclusions and predictions for the future. It is unreservedly recommended.” ––European Intellectual Property Review
In this text, the author tracks the history of American copyright law through the 20th century, from Mark Twain's exhortations for 'thick' copyright protection, to recent lawsuits regarding sampling in rap music and the 'digital moment', exemplified by the rise of Napster and MP3 technology.
Recent years have seen a number of pressing developments in copyright law: there has been an enormous increase in the range and type of work accorded protection; the concept of the ‘original work’ has entered into national copyright acts; and intangible entities are now entitled to protection by copyright. All these are consequences of legislative and technological developments that can be traced back over two centuries and more. the result. This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the growth of copyright law, largely based on archival research and on archival materials only recently made available online. The new history here articulated helps to explain why print is no longer today the sole or even the chief object of copyright protection. Taking its key examples from British, French and Danish copyright law, the book begins by exploring how the earliest copyright laws emerged out of the technological understanding of a printed ‘copy,’ and out of the philosophical notions of originals and copies, tangibles and intangibles. Dr Teilmann-Lockgoes on to examine the concept of the ‘work’ as it develops both conceptually and legally, as the object of protection, and then explains how, in a curious consequence, 'the work' turns the ‘copy’ into the 'mere' material instantiation of the intangible 'original'. The book concludes by addressing the considerable and complicated problems now emerging in copyright law following the inclusion of design within the scope of its protection. In this field Danish law, striving to protect Danish design, has been setting the trend for over a hundred years. In its examination of terminological exchanges between the diverse legal traditions and philosophical discourse, and in its thorough investigation of particular terms central to copyright legislation, this interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to scholars and students of copyright and intellectual property law; it also makes an important contribution to literary studies, legal history and cultural theory.
What can and can't be copied is a matter of law, but also of aesthetics, culture, and economics. The act of copying, and the creation and transaction of rights relating to it, evokes fundamental notions of communication and censorship, of authorship and ownership - of privilege and property. This volume conceives a new history of copyright law that has its roots in a wide range of norms and practices. The essays reach back to the very material world of craftsmanship and mechanical inventions of Renaissance Italy where, in 1469, the German master printer Johannes of Speyer obtained a five-year exclusive privilege to print in Venice and its dominions. Along the intellectual journey that follows, we encounter John Milton who, in his 1644 Areopagitica speech 'For the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing', accuses the English parliament of having been deceived by the 'fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of bookselling' (i.e. the London Stationers' Company). Later revisionary essays investigate the regulation of the printing press in the North American colonies as a provincial and somewhat crude version of European precedents, and how, in the revolutionary France of 1789, the subtle balance that the royal decrees had established between the interests of the author, the bookseller, and the public, was shattered by the abolition of the privilege system. Contributions also address the specific evolution of rights associated with the visual and performing arts. These essays provide essential reading for anybody interested in copyright, intellectual history and current public policy choices in intellectual property. The volume is a companion to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): www.copyrighthistory.org.
Rethinking Copyright is a small gem for an audience broader than copyright and intellectual property scholars, and well worth acquiring by a variety of general, corporate, law and academic libraries. Laurence Seidenberg, International Journal of Legal Information This excellent book raises again the controversial issue of whether we can learn anything and, if so, what from revisiting our past. Jeremy Phillips, ipkat.com All histories are about the present, not the past. Histories of copyright are no different: the pitched battles today over the nature of copyright frequently re-create a mythical past to shore up support for a partisan present. Deazley s Rethinking Copyright is a must have book for those who care about getting things right. Rethinking Copyright carefully reviews the critical formative years of statutory copyright (1710 1912), and then masterfully ties this foundational period to the current culture wars. It is a tour de force to be savored and returned to over and over again. William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc., New York, US Two books in one, the first half of this manifesto offers a contrarian account of eighteenth and nineteenth-century English copyright history; the second contributes to the burgeoning rhetoric of the public domain in contemporary copyright scholarship. Deazley contends that, contrary to the common wisdom, common law copyright never existed in the eighteenth-century, but was a concerted creation of nineteenth-century treatise writers. He may not convince us that common law copyright was a myth, but he does compellingly demonstrate that, like the mythical giant Antaeus, whenever common law copyright seemed beaten down to the ground, it rose again with renewed force. He also persuades us that it may be a Herculean task to strangle the life out of the impulse, historical or otherwise, to believe that authors labors justify the contemporary default setting of the positive law in favor of proprietary rights. The second half, calling for reconceptualization of copyright as a derogation from the public s freedom to engage with works of authorship will surely provoke disagreement from many readers knowledgeable about copyright, but Deazley is an apt expositor of this increasingly popular trend in the legal academy. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law, New York, US Copyright law remains hotly debated with the public domain contested territory. Ronan Deazley brings some welcome sanity to the discussion by revisiting the history of UK copyright law with a fresh eye and also by exploring the theoretical justifications for intellectual property in light of recent scholarship. The roles of rhetoric and legal writing in constructing copyright paradigms are the particular target of Deazley s critique. This is a provocative and challenging book which deserves a wide audience. Simon Stokes, Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons and Bournemouth Law School, UK I have just finished reading Ronan Deazley s manuscript. It s a very enjoyable, readable book. As to content, I found it interesting, carefully researched, wide in scope, and thought-provoking even where I didn t agree with his conclusions. Catherine Seville, Newnham College, Cambridge, UK This book provides the reader with a critical insight into the history and theory of copyright within contemporary legal and cultural discourse. It exposes as myth the orthodox history of the development of copyright law in eighteenth-century Britain and explores the way in which that myth became entrenched throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To this historical analysis are added two theoretical approaches to copyright not otherwise found in mainstream contemporary texts. Rethinking Copyright introduces the reader to copyright through the prism of the public domain before turning to the question as to how best to locate copyright within the parameters of traditional property discourse. Moreover, underpinning
Combining philosophical and historical perspectives, this book focuses on the rise of a legal institution that has dominated the economy of knowledge ever since it burst onto the scene at the dawn of modernity in the heartlands of Europe. From the age of print to the age of networks and disruptive technologies, this book explores the place of copyright amid the various conceptual transformations it has undergone over time. Uniquely, it presents an in-depth philosophical treatment of the cultural history of copyright from its beginnings to the present. Although copyright is a central topic, the content is by no means limited to it. The main question the author seeks to answer is: how do legal institutions emerge and how do they evolve over time? Though copyright is a wonderful example for tackling this question, a selection of other institutions, such as the social practice of promising in eighteenth-century Britain, are also addressed at considerable length. What the author has managed to show in this book is that the transformations which modern law has undergone since the eighteenth century are inextricably linked to those which have shaped the modern subject to the core. Law forms part of those great schemes of intelligibility that allow us to understand ourselves better. We need to delve deep into the multiple layers of culture if we want to fully understand how the morphology and cultural archaeology of our legal institutions intertwine.
Today's copyright wars can seem unprecedented. Sparked by the digital revolution that has made copyright—and its violation—a part of everyday life, fights over intellectual property have pitted creators, Hollywood, and governments against consumers, pirates, Silicon Valley, and open-access advocates. But while the digital generation can be forgiven for thinking the dispute between, for example, the publishing industry and Google is completely new, the copyright wars in fact stretch back three centuries—and their history is essential to understanding today’s battles. The Copyright Wars—the first major trans-Atlantic history of copyright from its origins to today—tells this important story. Peter Baldwin explains why the copyright wars have always been driven by a fundamental tension. Should copyright assure authors and rights holders lasting claims, much like conventional property rights, as in Continental Europe? Or should copyright be primarily concerned with giving consumers cheap and easy access to a shared culture, as in Britain and America? The Copyright Wars describes how the Continental approach triumphed, dramatically increasing the claims of rights holders. The book also tells the widely forgotten story of how America went from being a leading copyright opponent and pirate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the world’s intellectual property policeman in the late twentieth. As it became a net cultural exporter and its content industries saw their advantage in the Continental ideology of strong authors’ rights, the United States reversed position on copyright, weakening its commitment to the ideal of universal enlightenment—a history that reveals that today’s open-access advocates are heirs of a venerable American tradition. Compelling and wide-ranging, The Copyright Wars is indispensable for understanding a crucial economic, cultural, and political conflict that has reignited in our own time.
Beginning with Thomas Edison's aggressive copyright disputes and concluding with recent lawsuits against YouTube, Hollywood's Copyright Wars follows the struggle of the film, television, and digital media industries to influence and adapt to copyright law. Though much of Hollywood's engagement with the law occurs offstage, in the larger theater of copyright, many of Hollywood's most valued treasures, from Modern Times (1936) to Star Wars (1977), cannot be fully understood without appreciating their legal controversies. Peter Decherney shows that the history of intellectual property in Hollywood has not always mirrored the evolution of the law and recounts these extralegal solutions and their impact on American media and culture.
