A timely historical review of transatlantic copyright policy

Abstract

This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles, books, films and other media. It will include replies (and rejoinders) to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and reviews of books and articles both directly and indirectly related to intellectual property law. The release of Peter Baldwin's Copyright Wars seems almost perfectly timed, as the European Union has announced plans to reform copyright policy, meaning that we may find history repeating itself sometime in the next few years. The book is an account of three hundred years of the struggles between authors, disseminators (such as employers or publishers) and the audience. To what extent should authors be rewarded at the expense of the public? Should publishers be able to alter works without obtaining the creator's permission? Such questions are dealt with in a survey of transatlantic copyright laws—chiefly the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. The on-going ‘war’ referred to throughout Baldwin's book is between the Anglophone and ‘Continental’ (ie French and German) approaches to copyright. On the one hand, the Americans and British have traditionally supported a ‘pro-copyright’ approach, favouring commercial interests in the short-term and enriching the public domain thereafter. On the other, the Continental approach has been imbedded in what Baldwin refers to as ‘author's rights’—protection of the author's reputation, honour and right of withdrawal, even after he has dispensed with any economic interest in the work.