...s? Even the ones they claim to have been dictated by gods or aliens? Even if American copyright law requires “an author,” presumably a human one? 9 Ca... ...r the films of the Second World War, or footage on the daily lives of African-Americans during segregation, or the music of the Great Depression, or th... ... government position for an acquaintance, produced a fascinating and lengthy series of comments on a new “Rudiments of English Grammar,” discussed the... ...er to have an intellectual property system is only the first choice in a long series. 13 Even if one believes that intellectual property is Thomas Jeff... ...hey were successful. 36 As Yochai Benkler puts it, Alice Randall, an African American woman, was ordered by a government official not to publish her cr... ...ness plans relied upon showing movies in theaters and then licensing them to television stations. VCRs and Betamaxes fit nowhere in this plan; they wer... ...nt that it was a “fair use” under U.S. copyright law for consumers to record television programs for time-shifting purposes. Since fair The Internet T... ...s clearly disapproving, others would point out that book- stores, movies and television channels are filled with material on how to commit mur der...an... ... cook’s shop underground. 12 The art form is different, but the thought of a 1960s Cliff Richard or Ian An- derson being “cheered under a fit of the sp...

...s readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is le...

...t have ever guessed. They offer access to an entertaining and informative series of examples of how the word and particularly the printed word have ... ...ter he conquered all the city-states in Mesopotamia, the king initiated a series of reforms to pave the way for a ―Golden Age of Babylon.‖ Hammu... ... more likely stemmed from his encounters with sailors who had touched the American continent. In his revealing COD: A Biography of the Fish that ... ...fisherman kept secret their profitable catches of cod on regular trips to American waters. Mongols fostered exchange of ideas and inventions The ... ...its strength in a righteous fight. By Anonymous, from MacKellar’s “The American Printer” 1887 1... ...ightbulb 1880  Electricity distribution 1906–1919  Radio 1920s  Television 1930s (or sooner)  Punch cards to input and externally store ... ...—censored that accurate call until morning vote totals had confirmed it. 1960s  Integrated circuits replace transistors.  Plain-paper copying ma... ...e, Kemeny explained, ―Einstein wasn‘t very good at math.‖) Prior to the 1960s, one had to be able to write custom software in order to use a compu... ...of the twenty-first century:  Satellite TV gave people access on their television sets to real reporting of images and information on CNN, Al Jaz...

...t have ever guessed. They offer access to an entertaining and informative series of examples of how the word and particularly the printed word have ... ...ter he conquered all the city-states in Mesopotamia, the king initiated a series of reforms to pave the way for a ―Golden Age of Babylon.‖ Hammura... ... more likely stemmed from his encounters with sailors who had touched the American continent. In his revealing COD: A Biography of the Fish that Ch... ...fisherman kept secret their profitable catches of cod on regular trips to American waters. 13 Som... ...its strength in a righteous fight. By Anonymous, from MacKellar‘s ―The American Printer‖ 1887 1... ...ightbulb 1880  Electricity distribution 1906–1919  Radio 1920s  Television 1930s (or sooner)  Punch cards to input and externally store ... ...—censored that accurate call until morning vote totals had confirmed it. 1960s  Integrated circuits replace transistors.  Plain-paper copying ma... ...ide, Kemeny explained, ―Einstein wasn‘t very good at math.‖) Prior to the 1960s, one had to be able to write custom software in order to use a compu... ...of the twenty-first century:  Satellite TV gave people access on their television sets to real reporting of images and information on CNN, Al Jaz...