Alex Sayf Cummings: Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century (2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · copyright, counterculture, intellectual property, law, music, new media, phonograph, piracy
It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is as old as recorded music itself.
In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United States. When copyright emerged, only visual material such as books and maps were thought to deserve protection; even musical compositions were not included until 1831. Once a performance could be captured on a wax cylinder or vinyl disc, profound questions arose over the meaning of intellectual property. Is only a written composition defined as a piece of art? If a singer performs a different interpretation of a song, is it a new and distinct work? Such questions have only grown more pressing with the rise of sampling and other forms of musical pastiche. Indeed, music has become the prime battleground between piracy and copyright. It is compact, making it easy to copy. And it is highly social, shared or traded through social networks–often networks that arise around music itself. But such networks also pose a counter-argument: as channels for copying and sharing sounds, they were instrumental in nourishing hip-hop and other new forms of music central to American culture today. Piracy is not always a bad thing.
An insightful and often entertaining look at the history of music piracy, Democracy of Sound offers invaluable background to one of the hot-button issues involving creativity and the law.
- Provides a political and historical perspective on the rise of the “information economy.”
- Discusses rare and little-known unreleased songs by the Beatles, which are potentially controversial because of their racial content.
- Shows how piracy has been integral to the music industry through much of its history and how pirates have influenced copyright law.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2013
ISBN 0199858225, 9780199858224
336 pages
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Adriano Belisário, Bruno Tarin (eds.): Pirataria & Cultura Livre (2012) [Portuguese]
Filed under book | Tags: · copyleft, copyright, free culture, intellectual property, piracy
Copyfight is a collection of Brazilian Portuguese texts that aim to address some of the disputes around the topic of intellectual property, throwing new light on the subject and showing how such conflicts have impacts not only in the field of media culture, but also on our everyday lives, as well as on the production of machines, objects or food.
As stated in its introduction, “the goal of the book is not to broadcast a single view or a final proposal for the current issues about free culture and piracy, but rather unveil a multitude of reflections and practices. Copyfight does not refer to a world of perfect fittings, but a world of friction.” In this sense, the book develops a experimental to its reading, allowing the access of texts through thematic nodes or through the notes of the editors.
The project is the result of two meetings, held in 2010 and 2011 in Rio de Janeiro and gathers contributions from Giuseppe Cocco, Jorge Machado, f? erre!, Silke Helfrich, Matteo Pasquinelli, Richard Stallman, Beatriz Cintra Martins, Bruno Tarin, Pedro Mendes, Antonio Negri, Chapolin, Yann Moulier Boutang, Felipe Fonseca, Washington Luis Lima Drummond, Marcus Vinicius, Antoine Moreau, Dmytri Kleiner, Florian Cramer, Guilherme Pimentel, Aymeric Mansoux, Tadzia Maya, Tomás Vega, Thiago Skárnio, and Miguel Afonso Caetano.
Publisher Azougue Editorial, Rio de Janeiro, December 2012
Free Art License
274 pages
via Aymeric Mansoux
E. Gabriella Coleman: Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking (2012)
Filed under book | Tags: · anonymous, anthropology, code, computing, floss, free software, hacker culture, hacking, intellectual property, internet, internet activism, software, web
Who are computer hackers? What is free software? And what does the emergence of a community dedicated to the production of free and open source software–and to hacking as a technical, aesthetic, and moral project–reveal about the values of contemporary liberalism? Exploring the rise and political significance of the free and open source software (F/OSS) movement in the United States and Europe, Coding Freedom details the ethics behind hackers’ devotion to F/OSS, the social codes that guide its production, and the political struggles through which hackers question the scope and direction of copyright and patent law. In telling the story of the F/OSS movement, the book unfolds a broader narrative involving computing, the politics of access, and intellectual property.
E. Gabriella Coleman tracks the ways in which hackers collaborate and examines passionate manifestos, hacker humor, free software project governance, and festive hacker conferences. Looking at the ways that hackers sustain their productive freedom, Coleman shows that these activists, driven by a commitment to their work, reformulate key ideals including free speech, transparency, and meritocracy, and refuse restrictive intellectual protections. Coleman demonstrates how hacking, so often marginalized or misunderstood, sheds light on the continuing relevance of liberalism in online collaboration.
Publisher Princeton University Press, 2012
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License
ISBN 1400845297, 9781400845293
264 pages
review (James Grimmelmann, Jotwell: Cyberlaw)
review (David Banks, Cyborgology)
review (Cade Metz, Wired)
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Andrew Barry: Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society (2001)
Filed under book | Tags: · citizenship, european union, governance, intellectual property, interactivity, neoliberalism, networks, politics, society, sociology of science, technology
Technology assumes a remarkable importance in contemporary political life. Today, politicians and intellectuals extol the virtues of networking, interactivity and feedback, and stress the importance of new media and biotechnologies for economic development and political innovation. Measures of intellectual productivity and property play an increasingly critical part in assessments of the competitiveness of firms, universities and nation-states. At the same time, contemporary radical politics has come to raise questions about the political preoccupation with technical progress, while also developing a certain degree of technical sophistication itself.
In a series of in-depth analyses of topics ranging from environmental protest to intellectual property law, and from interactive science centres to the European Union, this book interrogates the politics of the technological society. Critical of the form and intensity of the contemporary preoccupation with new technology, Political Machines opens up a space for thinking the relation between technical innovation and political inventiveness.
Publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001
ISBN 0485006340, 9780485006346
320 pages
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Comment (1)Mark Rose: Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (1993)
Filed under book | Tags: · copyright, intellectual property, united kingdom
The notion of the author as the creator and therefore the first owner of a work is deeply rooted both in our economic system and in our concept of the individual. But this concept of authorship is modern. Mark Rose traces the formation of copyright in eighteenth-century Britain—and in the process highlights still current issues of intellectual property. Authors and Owners is at once a fascinating look at an important episode in legal history and a significant contribution to literary and cultural history.
Publisher Harvard University Press, 1993
ISBN 0674053095, 9780674053090
176 pages
Peter Drahos, John Braithwaite: Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy? (2002)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, business, copyright, economics, intellectual property, knowledge economy, law, piracy, politics, TRIPS, wto
New intellectual property regimes are entrenching new inequalities. Access to information is fundamental to the exercise of human rights and marketplace competition, but patents are being used to lock up vital educational, software, genetic and other information, creating a global property order dominated by a multinational elite. How did intellectual property rules become part of the World Trade Organization’s free trade agreements? How have these rules changed the knowledge game for international business? What are the consequences for the ownership of biotechnology and digital technology, and for all those who have to pay for what was once shared information? Based on extensive interviews with key players, this book tells the story of these profound transformations in information ownership. The authors argue that in the globalized information society, the rich have found new ways to rob the poor, and shows how intellectual property rights can be more democratically defined.
Publisher Earthscan, 2002
ISBN 1853839175, 9781853839177
253 pages
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Comment (0)Future of Copyright Anthology. A collection of texts from a crowd-funded contest (2012)
Filed under book | Tags: · acta, copyright, fiction, intellectual property, law
“How should a good copyright system look like? Obviously, the one our civilization uses now doesn’t fit the reality of today. Outdated, over-extended and unenforceable it leads to ridiculous court cases against random people and clearly fails to meet the needs of the digital world. Without good alternatives, the only solution some can imagine is to take what doesn’t work and get more of it, hoping that this will do the trick. It won’t.
In order to form the future of copyright system we need to step up and craft a model that will fit the digital reality, shaped by technology of today and tomorrow. There are some initial proposals, most notably Barcelona Charter or Washington Declaration, but we believe there’s room for improvement and we want to give it a try.
It is our great pleasure to present the results of the first edition of the Future of Copyright contest held by the Modern Poland Foundation. Our jury – Prof. Michael Geist, Piotr Czerski and Jarosław Lipszyc – awarded the main prize to Aymeric Mansoux, author of ‘Morphology of copyright tale’. Moreover, the jury decided to grant an honorable mention to Togi, author of the work “Give’. Congratulations!
We would like to thank you for your crowdfunding support and a high standard of the submitted works. We were pleasantly surprised by the interest shown in the competition, and we have decided to hold its second edition next year. We hope that with your help it will be even more successful and the collected works will provide a strong voice in the debate on the future of copyright law and system.” (contest organisers)
Publisher Modern Poland Foundation, Warsaw, 25 May 2012
Creative Commons BY-SA license
49 pages
via Aymeric Mansoux
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