Copyright 101
Submitted by Richard Lanham
Note: This essay began life as a talk delivered at several American campuses during my 2001-02 year as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. I have revised and expanded it for publication here.
I ought to warn you up front that this essay is a one-trick pony: I make only one point. It is not hard to understand but has not been widely understood.
The One Trick
The transfer of information from the printed page to the digital screen has changed the meaning of ownership and authorship in perplexing ways. Our students face these perplexities every day of their learning and working lives—and not only if they use Napster or its epigones to download pop songs. I suggest that we should prepare them, in some formal way, for the intellectual property questions which are now an ordinary part of their lives. A course in copyright—we can call it “Copyright 101” —would be a good place to begin. I offer some suggestions about how such a course might develop."
http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/lanham-copyright-101
Posted by souzak at September 5, 2005 09:44 PM