Copyright’s Highway
Overview
In Copyright’s Highway, one of the nation’s leading authorities on intellectual property law offers an engaging, readable, and intelligent analysis of the effect of copyright on American politics, economy, and culture. From eighteenth-century copyright law, to the “celestial jukebox,” to the future of copyright issues in the digital age, Paul Goldstein presents a thorough examination of the challenges facing copyright owners and users.
In this fully updated second edition, the author expands the discussion to cover the latest developments and shifts in copyright law for a new audience of scholars and students. This expanded edition introduces readers to present and future debates regarding copyright law and policy, including a new chapter on the technological shift in emphasis from producer to consumer and the legal shift from exclusive rights to exceptions and limitations to those rights. From Gutenberg to Google Books, Copyright’s Highway, Second Edition, offers a concise, essential resource for the internet generation.
Buy Copyright’s Highway
Copyright’s Highway now an updated and expanded second edition, is one of the most brilliant, lucid, and readable explanations of what is increasingly America’s national treasure: our intellectual property. Highly recommended.
Scott Turow, The Authors Guild
Copyright’s Highway: From the Printing Press to the Cloud
“Paul Goldstein’s eloquent call for a more human-centered discipline of copyright blends perception and prescription to great effect, indicating to the reader how far copyright has yet to go to help creativity flourish—and how it might cover the distance.”
Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Universit
“Paul Goldstein can make the complex issues of copyright law accessible and captivating without sacrificing the nuances of law, politics, and custom that underlie them. With this second edition of Copyright’s Highway, Goldstein adds timely narratives, such as the Google Book Project, to illustrate the evolving nature of copyright law and its importance to our everyday lives.”
Marshall Leaffer, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
“A much-awaited new edition of Paul Goldstein’s landmark synthesis of the history and policies of US copyright law. Goldstein’s comprehensive and deep understanding of the legal, economic, and technological interests at stake thoroughly illuminates this sensitive and accessible study. A new concluding chapter meticulously and critically examines the challenges of ‘competing with free’ and the landscape-altering consequences of copyright’s encounter with internet platforms.”
Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University
Praise for the First Edition
“A clever and vibrant book that traces copyright history from the invention of the printing press through current challenges to copyright from new technologies … Most compelling [on] multimedia technologies.”
Sabra Chartrand, The New York Times
“Goldstein displays both Solomonic wisdom and Houdini-esque agility in this lively excursion into the convoluted labyrinth of copyright law … This eminent authority writes with clarity, lucidity and a wry sense of humor about a subject whose complexities can be daunting. Above all he always reminds us of what is really at stake … Equally concerned with the artist’s ‘moral right’ to protect the integrity of the artwork and the dollars-and-cents impact of the law.”
Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
“An almost ideal introduction to and overview of the subject … Not merely does it explain what copyright is and how it works, it also shows how copyright extends far beyond legal protection of writers’ rights to their work and how it will become a vital issue in the new world of the ‘celestial jukebox.’ Copyright is really about the shape of the world we live in. Is it a world of absolute individual rights that cannot be impinged upon by the common interest, or is it a world of communal domination to which the individual must submit? … A superb book.”
Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
“A wonderfully American tale of how law, literature, politics and megabucks intersect.”
William Petrocelli, San Francisco Chronicle
“This elegant and accessible volume … in the scope and mastery of its subject, as well as in the clarity of its expression, helps to frame U.S. copyright law.”
Jane Ginsburg, New York Law Journal