Copyrights and Copywrongs

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Copyrights and Copy Wrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity (dt .: . Copyrights and intellectual falsehoods The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens the creativity ) is a 2001 book published by the American media theorist Siva Vaidhyanathan . Vaidhyanathan dealt in the work with the development of the American copyright system .

Emergence

The book was written while Vaidhyanathan was doing her PhD at the University of Texas . It was published by New York University Press , paperback two years later.

content

The book deals in particular with the development since the late 19th century and the expansion of American copyright from the originally protected books to other media such as music or films. The book was published shortly after the Napster debate first sparked a social discussion about copyright issues. Together with Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas, which was at around the same time , it was one of the books that was comparatively accessible and opinionated, and thus brought public discussion together with voices from academia. Vaidhyanathan is influenced by Lessig's earlier works. Like Lessig, he is not a trained copyright lawyer, and so asks questions that lay outside the academic debate before the turn of the millennium.

He argues that the retrospective linking of "intellectual property" to the concept of property creates numerous problems. To this end, he differentiates between "property language", which primarily serves the interests of the rights holder, and " policy language", which primarily serves the interests of the public. However, he does not go into the long academic discussion of how law and public debate should influence each other.

Against the background of an American cultural history since 1900, he describes in detail the negative consequences that copyright law had on the development of culture. As counterexamples he cites blues , jazz and hip-hop , which in their formative and creative phases have hardly any contact with the American copyright system. The creativity of the artists working there contradicted in many ways what they would have been allowed to do under the terms of copyright law. He describes the deterrent effects that "presumed rights" have on potential users, and fears that the use of music, film, software and similar media in teaching, art or private use will be restricted.

The demands that Vaidhyanathan makes in his book can be summarized in two complexes. On the one hand, the copyright debate must be transferred from the limitations of jurisprudence to a broader debate about public interests. On the other hand, he advocates restricting the scope of copyright protection to the extent that it was when these rights were introduced. Vaidhyanathan calls for an expansion of the fair use concept.

literature

  • Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity , NYU Press, 2001. ( ISBN 978-0814788073 )

Remarks

  1. ↑ Sharyn Costin: Book Review: Copyrights and Copywrongs 61 U. Toronto Fac. L. Rev. 229 (2003) p. 229
  2. ^ Sonia K. Katyal: Ending the Revolution 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1465 (2001-2002) p. 1466
  3. ↑ Sharyn Costin: Book Review: Copyrights and Copywrongs 61 U. Toronto Fac. L. Rev. 229 (2003) p. 230
  4. ^ Sonia K. Katyal: Ending the Revolution 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1465 (2001-2002) p. 1477
  5. ↑ a b c Laura J. Murray: Review: Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose ?: Public Domains and Intellectual Property Law , American Quarterly Vol. 55, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 739-748 p. 740
  6. ^ A b Sonia K. Katyal: Ending the Revolution 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1465 (2001-2002) p. 1478
  7. ^ Sonia K. Katyal: Ending the Revolution 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1465 (2001-2002) p. 1467