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Public Domain: Enclosing The Commons Of The Mind (2008)

by James Boyle(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0300150695 (ISBN13: 9780300150698)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Yale University Press

review 1: Very thorough, to the point of being looong.You probably wouldn't want to read the whole thing unless you're *particularly* interested in the subject.It *is* an important subject, though, and this does provide a good perspective on it.The book is well-written and balanced. I like that the author keeps bringing the argument back to first principles, and that he *doesn't* have all the answers: here are the factors that need to be balanced; here are the factors that current laws/rulings ignore, making them unbalanced; here are the costs of that unbalance.TODO: Write a summary/outline.
review 2: Accessible, top-shelf, clear-minded talk about intellectual property law from one of the leading lights of its liberalization. Most people reading that sentence will turn ... moreoff. If you survived it, you should probably read the book, because it talks about problems that concern you personally: you, who write reviews on Goodreads and post vacation photos on Flickr and otherwise become an author several times a day. The book is centrally about how the bloat of the copyright system, born of misguided legislation, poor judicial decisions, and corporate self-interest, makes it harder for authors and consumers like us to do what we do without infringing on something. While not condemning all intellectual property law as bad, Boyle calls for us to realize the importance of preserving the public domain: loosely, the realm of ideas and expressions that are free for everyone to draw on. He goes from first principles to relevant and modern conclusions, and though he presents himself with clarity and precision, you don't need any legal training to understand him. If you read only one book about intellectual property in your life, this is the one. less

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