In Authors, Users and Pirates: Copyright law and subjectivity, James Meese tells the story of copyright law from the perspective of the three ‘subjects’ it has created: the author, the user and the pirate. Simply put, Meese defines the author as s/he who creates an original (and therefore) protected work, the user as s/he who accesses a copyright work lawfully, and the pirate s/he who engages in copyright infringement. The book retraces the complex ménage-a-trois of this deceptively simple triad of subjects and presents copyright law not just as a legal framework but as a cultural practice in need of greater critical evaluation.
The
aim of the book is ambitious in many regards. First, its analysis of copyright
law is interdisciplinary and seeks to speak to different disciplines
simultaneously, such as law and cultural studies. Second, the book approaches from
a comparative perspective, covering the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.
Finally, the book aims to track the evolution of the author, the user and the
pirate within the historical context of copyright law. A tall order indeed, but
such ambition is perhaps what the field of copyright law needs to break new ground
at a time when reform is actively sought after by both scholars and
policy-makers [see here, here and here]. With this book, Reese delivers
the first comprehensive account of the author-user-pirate relationship under
copyright law. His analysis is grounded in subjectivity and relational theory [for
more here and here],
which is undeniably the main and most original contribution of the book to the
current scholarship.
Pirate Cat won't pay for his downloads |
Reese
argues that whilst the subjects of the author, the user and the pirate are core
to the copyright framework, they remain under-theorised and often poorly
understood within the existing literature. Reese puts forward the notion that
each of these subjects emerged in copyright law as a prominent component of its
narrative because the copyright framework lacked a strong and coherent
theoretical foundation in the first place. It is the lack of theory and
rationale for the existence of copyright that triggered the creation of the
author, the user and the pirate as vehicles or justifications for the
introduction and enforcement of copyright. The book contributes to filling this
gap in theory or knowledge. However, it should be noted that the author does
not go as far as proposing concrete recommendations as to what copyright law
might look like if we were to acknowledge its relational dimension and the
existence of the author-user-pirate dynamic.
Author, Users and
Pirates offers a
forum for scholars from different disciplines to exchange thoughts on the
question of copyright reform in the twenty-first century. As such, this book will
be relevant to any academics or student interested in the theory of copyright
and its foundational concepts.
Book reviewed - Authors, users, and pirates: Copyright law
and subjectivity by James Meese (MIT Press, February 2018). Hardcover $35.00
S | £27.00 . ISBN: 9780262037440. 240 pp. | 9 in x 6 in 12
b&w illus. More information available on the publisher’s website here.
Book review: ‘Authors, Users, and Pirates: Copyright law and subjectivity’
Reviewed by Mathilde Pavis
on
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
Rating:
No comments:
All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.
It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.
Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html