The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle

Author: Peter Baldwin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691169095
Published In: June 2016
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: U.S. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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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.

Introduction: The Agon of Author and Audience

1. The Battle between Anglo-American Copyright and European Authors' Rights

2. From Royal Privilege to Literary Property: A Common Start to Copyright in the Eighteenth Century

3. The Ways Part: Copyright and Authors' Rights in the Nineteenth Century

4. Continental Drift: Europe Moves from Property to Personality at the Turn of the Century

5. The Strange Birth of Moral Rights in Fascist Europe

6. The Postwar Apotheosis of Authors' Rights

7. America Turns European: The Battle of the Booksellers Redux in the 1990s

8. The Rise of the Digital Public: The Copyright Wars Continue in the New Millennium

Conclusion: Reclaiming the Spirit of Copyright

Acknowledgments

Notes