The past, present and future of copyright law--in three lengthy volumes

Abstract

‘A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?’ (Samuel Johnson) 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. This remarkable three-volume work represents a labour of love by the two editors, both well-known Australian copyright academics. Each of the three volumes follows the same pattern—a lengthy introduction by the editors, followed by a number of key articles and other texts (primarily taken from law journals, together with some significant speeches and letters (eg to The Times), some political texts (eg, extracts from Proudhon's Property is Theft arguments and from Marx and Engels' 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party)), the text of a few, very selective US and UK court cases and statutes, together with some fiction (an extract from Charles Dickens' Hard Times), a Papal Encyclical, and each volume ending with a well-developed index. There is, however, no overall index to all three volumes. Volume 1 is subtitled ‘The scope and historical context’ and, as this subtitle implies, sets out the history of copyright and copyright law from the earliest times. Volume 2 is subtitled ‘Application to creative industries in the 20th century’ and Volume 3, ‘Copyright in the 21st century’—again self-explanatory titles.