Abstract
In the past three decades, since the ascendancy of the United States in the process of determining international copyright policy and rules, considerable bitterness has entered debate about copyright. Many individuals have objected to the attitude of the United States government to copyright legal infraction around the world. Many Americans have also protested at their government’s equally vehement attitude to real or alleged copyright infringements of US citizens.
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- 1.
Lessig blog 12 January 2013, http://lessig.tumblr.com.
- 2.
Swartz became involved, aged 15, in the coding of Creative Commons. He was later known as a contributor to development of RSS and Reddit software. He advocated for open access in the Guerilla Open Access Manual (2008) and in 2010 he helped to found Demand Progress, an internet advocacy organisation dedicated to ‘win[ning] progressive policy changes for ordinary people … ’.
- 3.
A considerable number of Swartz’s friends, including Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig blogged and spoke about the Justice Department’s actions. For a partial defence of the Justice Department’s actions, pointing out that the Attorney and her officers acted consistent with usual departmental prosecutorial practice, see Orin Kerr in Volokh.com 16 January 2013. James Boyle replied to Kerr in http://Huffingtonpost.com 18 January 2013.
- 4.
See Litigation and Trial blog of Max Kennerly, 14 January 2011, and the 2011 Review of Books at http://www.aaronsw.com.
- 5.
Although a case involving what could probably be better characterized as an example of derivative fiction, rather than fan fiction, Salinger v. Colting, 2010 WL 1729126, 9 (2d Cir. April 30, 2010) demonstrates judicial reluctance to permit creative appropriation of fictional characters and their back-stories. In Salinger, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals returned a copyright infringement case to the New York District Court to reconsider its finding of ‘irreparable harm’ (on which basis the district court granted an injunction against publication of a ‘sequel’ to the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye). The District Court found that the defendant, Frederick Colting, author of 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, breached copyright in J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye—and, more controversially, copyright in the character of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of Salinger’s work. 60 Years Later imagined Caulfield as a man aged 76 (‘Mr C’), escaped from his nursing home and wandering the streets of New York. In Salinger’s novel, Caulfield is a 17 year old, expelled from school and wandering in New York. The District Court rejected arguments of fair use for the purpose of commentary and criticism (or parody). Though it vacated the lower court’s decision, the appeals court found 60 Years Later to be substantially similar to Salinger’s novel. The Salinger trust was ‘likely to succeed on the merits of his copyright infringement claim’. On fan fiction, and user-generated content, see Wong (2009), p. 1075.
- 6.
In antiquity, political struggle created near universal tyranny, except in Athens and Rome. Citizens of the former city invented plebiscite democracy, permitting a small group of qualified men a right to vote. After a few decades, democracy of the few collapsed into tyranny. In Rome, aristocrats and people shared republican government for centuries, before aristocratic assertion of sovereignty resulted in ruinous civil wars, and finally tyranny of emperors. Feudalism established, in most of the world, control arrangements, conferring on small groups, emperors, kings and lords, control over land and labour. Until partial acceptance of the idea of popular sovereignty, all political systems assumed overlordship of one or a few. Even today, the vesting pattern of property rights suggests that popular sovereignty is unrealised. In all countries, ownership is highly concentrated.
- 7.
Marx and Engels (1848), Chapter 1.
- 8.
Observation attributed to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister of France. It is possible Talleyrand is not author of the saying. He is supposed to have made the statement after accession of Charles X, the last Bourbon, in 1824, or his deposition in 1830.
References
Barlow JP (1994) The economy of ideas: a framework for patents and copyrights in the digital age (everything you know about intellectual property is wrong). WIRED, 2.03, pp 1–13
Marx K, Engels F (1848) The communist manifesto. London
Wong M (2009) Transformative user generated content in copyright law: infringing derivative works or fair use? Vanderbilt J Entertain Technol Law 11(4):1075–1139
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Atkinson, B., Fitzgerald, B. (2014). The Meaning and Future of Copyright. In: A Short History of Copyright. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02075-4_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02075-4_14
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