Textbook Revolution: The Illustrated Story of Copyright

The Illustrated Story of Copyright

Edward Samuels

Filed under: [ , free culture, general reference, writing ]

http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/index.htm

Copyright is becoming an increasingly contentious in today’s digital world. This book provides a good background on copyright as it’s evolved to meet past technological challenges and an informed opinion on how it might continue to evolve to meet the needs of a digital society. Mr. Samuels takes the stance that copyright is a useful and functional method of rewarding artists and he firmly believes that we’ll find technical solutions to the problems that digital technologies pose to current copyright systems. Whether or not you agree with him, the background this book provides is useful, and most of the history is presented with minimal bias. Readers should, however, be aware that there are alternate points of view for many of these topics.

The book offers very shallow coverage of early copyright law and the Stationers’ Guild, focusing instead on mostly US copyright law since 1790. That shouldn’t be too much of an issue for most readers, but does hamper some insight into the inner workings of copyright that’s gained by a deeper understanding of this part of copyright history.

The book was designed for print and seems to have been professionally edited, so the content is quite good and the writing itself is well done. The writing style is eminently readable, which makes for a nice change from many historical books.

Unfortunately, the book suffers from a layout that makes it hard to read on screen, although it presumably works better in print. Text boxes of sidebars butt up against unboxed text, which is reflowed around these sidebars and around the dozens of illustrations. The index isn’t hyperlinked, so to keep it relevant the author added colored numbers throughout the text which distract from the flow of the reading. And the illustrations themselves, which are the point of an illustrated history, often get in the way of the text.

Layout complaints aside, another problem is that the author hasn’t integrated the many important changes to the copyright situation into the text, even though they’re discussed elsewhere on the site as supplemental articles. Consider the following quotes from separate pages regarding file-sharing:

In any event, the most common current uses of chat rooms, instant messages, telephony, and videoconferencing are to transmit spontaneous typing, talking, and gesturing. While it’s certainly possible to recite poetry or send unauthorized copies of CDs, movies or television programs, the quality of the messages, processed in real time, ranges from unacceptable to barely acceptable to acceptable, and probably doesn’t yet threaten existing methods of distributing most copyrighted works.

But guess what? The fix is already in. It’s the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The legal framework is already in place that will make it illegal to copy or access protected works. The secure format is not yet in place, but it probably will be by the time you read this book. Enjoy all the music that’s been put out there in unprotected form, because the free ride will be over. In five years or so, when the new music is in a secure format, we’ll look back nostalgically at all the free music we got from the “pre-protection” days.

Obviously, sections like these need updating to reflect our current era of YouTube, Google Books, and eMusic. And while some issues are covered quite well elsewhere on the website, making readers search for current topics isn’t the best way to address the issue.

All in all, this a solid book that needs updating in some sections and could use a new layout. That shouldn’t detract from the good quality of the majority of the book. Beginning students of copyright law as well as those in the music and film industries will benefit from this book, but they should take the time to learn more about opposing points of view on the role of copyright in a digital society.

Features: Unlinked index, linked table of contents, black and white graphics, additional articles on parent site, useful links on parent site

From the website:

In this book, I trace the story of copyright from its adoption in this country over 210 years ago through the headline issues posed by the Internet and the digitizing of creative works. Using sidebars and photographs to illustrate the major turning points, I try to explain copyright straightforwardly enough so that teenagers can understand it, and in enough detail to help inform even those who are already familiar with the basics.

In Part One, “Copyright and Technology,” sidebars and photographs and illustrations place the law into historical context and bring to life the relevant copyright technologies—records and radio, movies and television, printing and photocopying, computers and the Internet.

In Part Two, “Copyright Basics,” I explain the general principles of copyright. The photographs and sidebars allow readers to jump right into the cases. Is a photograph of the Grand Canyon copyrightable? Does the second fabric design infringe the copyright in the first?

Link to website

Available for purchase? yes