Reddit mentions: The best copyright law books

Hurray! I spent a summer reading extensively about this subject and I think I can point you in the right direction!

I have four books I would like to recommend to get you started. These four will give you a great historical perspective and all the vocabulary you'll need to do further research should you be so inclined. Without further adieu:

[Copyright in Historical Perspective]
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826513735/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Get ready to learn old english! It is difficult at first, but if you try to read phonetically rather than literally it's not too bad. This book starts way before copyright was even a word and continues up to around the turn of the 20th century. I would strongly recommend reading through this book twice before moving on for two reasons. One, reading old english is really hard at first. Two, the amount of information in this book is staggering to say the least. It is by far the best book I've read to give a reader the greatest overview and understanding of how the concept of intellectual property came to be. A fair warning, this book was written in the 1960s and as such the writing is a bit dry. Which brings me to my next suggestion.

Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates

This book was written much more recently and has a much more conversational tone to it. It doesn't have quite as much old english to it and when it does the author was nice enough modernize it for you. It has a lot of the same information as the previous book, but I strongly recommend this book as Adrian Johns has some great insights towards the end when he starts to get to the later half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

In this book, James Boyle gives a great overview of the current fight being waged in the courtroom over intellectual property. He certainly has an agenda with this book but I'll let you do the reading and make up your own mind.

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

No list of books about copyright and intellectual property can go without Lawrence Lessig. Read this book and you'll understand why I've included it.

I would really encourage you to read these 4 in this order as well. I did so by happenstance and the flow from one book to the next was better than I could have possibly planned. Good luck!

If you PM me your email address, I can also send you my outline.

In terms of books, the most concise and easiest to read book I've found is Copyright in a Nutshell. It's around 400 pages, but it's super short and fat with big text so it's not actually 400 pages worth of reading. The digital version is only $15 on Amazon and my law school's library had it for $20.

If you need something more in depth than the nutshell, I also liked the Copyright E&E. It takes longer to get through, and I wouldn't call it "concise" but it does distill the concepts pretty damn well.

I doubt you know what the original idea or intent was. Here's a hint, copyright was not created by the founding fathers and in fact none of them where alive when it all started.

If you're thinking about how it supposedly helps artists then you've been brainwashed by the constant bombardment of advertising (which started hundreds of years ago right along side copyright). Copyright is to help publishers not artists. It was never about artists. Copyright has always been about publishers and censorship (that's not hyperbole, it literally started as censorship).

If you want to learn more about copyright you could check out:

Against Intellectual Monopoly (which has an obvious bias, but factual history lessons)

Rethinking Copyright is a little less biased, but a good read.

Copyright in Historical Perspective is a fair historical work done in the late 60s. It's very informative and not biased.

I'd recommend reading any of them. The first is free on the website I linked and the others can easily be pirated if you don't like the price.

I agree that digital production and distribution changes things, but I'm not convinced copyright makes no sense. People should have some kind of property right in the things they create that allows them to profit from that work.

Between no copyright at all and the copyright regime we currently have, surely there's some kind of compromise in the middle that serves the needs of artists and consumers. I've heard good things about this: http://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Copyright-William-Patry/dp/0199760098

Well, the proper venue for your question is probably ELI5. If you want a solid source on DMCA, this book has been a good starting source for a lot of my colleagues.

Caveat: I don't know shit about Canadian law.

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

this book

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^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

• How To Fix Copyright by William Patry.
  
• The Public Domain by James Boyle.
  
• Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine.

See section 102(b) of the US Copyright Law:
>(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

The textbook I'm using this semester calls this the "Idea/Expression Dichotomy" and summarizes it like this:

>This principle is derived from the Supreme Court's decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. (11 Otto) 99 (1879), which held that, under copyright law, the copyright owner of a book explaining a system of accounting could prohibit others from copying the original expression containted in the book, but could not prohibit them from copying the accounting system itself. See also Mazer V. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 217 (1954) ("Unlike a ptent, a copyright gives no exclusive right to the art disclosed; protection is given only to the expression of the idea--not the idea itself").

> > What are your recommendations for starting points on digital age politics and stuff like that?

> Boyle's PUBLIC DOMAIN; Patry's HOW TO FIX COPYRIGHT; Zittrain's THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

• http://www.thepublicdomain.org/download/ (free)
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/How-to-Fix-Copyright-ebook/dp/B005UFBWES/?tag=electronicfro-20
  
  
• http://futureoftheinternet.org/download/ (free)
  

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199760098

No worries, friend. If you want to know more, your should check out this book.

To add to what /u/Amarkov is saying, consider the Aqua song "Barbie Girl," where Mattel sued the band and pretty much every related entity for trademark infringement over the doll. The court rules it was a parody and fair use, but not until a huge, expensive legal battle.


Madonna is heading into a similar battle with a less-clear of a parody by the Girls Gone Wild dude over her song of the same name.


I found a book you can use to research, though!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470339454?pc_redir=1410489519&robot_redir=1

Swartz was facing a max of 7 years. Additionally, when the RIAA really wanted to make an example of someone, they were able to sue for absolutely ludicrous, life ruining damages.

When the ordinary person can face a threat of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over a few albums (and not pre-release secret material) - something is very wrong.

The responses in the CMV thread are pretty ludicrous and dodge the issue. I'd recommend William Patry's books for an overview of the problems with our current system: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/moral-panics-and-the-copyright-wars-9780195385649?cc=us&lang=en&

And "How To Fix Copyright": https://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Copyright-William-Patry/dp/0199760098

He's one of the pre-eminent intellectual property lawyers of our time, and his thoughts on the matter are very educational.