Anna Mancini

Copyright Law Is Obsolete Anna Mancini

ISBN-10: 1-932848-18-5(PAPERBACK) ISBN-13: 9781932848182 (PAPERBACK) ISBN-10:1-932848-19-3 (E-BOOK) ISBN-13: 978-1-932848-19-9 (E-BOOK) 124 pages 35 USD POD PAPERBACK 5 USD EBK 50 USD HARDCOVER COPYRIGHT LAW IS OBSOLETE Before the advent of writing, the human body was used as the only storage device for information, and memory was much valued. Knowledge was passed from person to person through speech. It was obvious that, as the speech could not be touched and seized, knowledge could therefore not be owned in the same way as we own objects. Knowledge was clearly a matter of human relationships. With the invention of writing, all possible means were used to store information: bones, shells, clay, stone, animal skin, paper, wood, and metal. They all shared a common point: they materialized information. This led to people and lawyers coming to believe that knowledge could be an object of property, and ultimately, the concept of intellectual property. Considering the author's right as a right of property was not of great inconvenience as long as knowledge remained materialized. As digitalization has once again dematerialized knowledge, we have returned to the beginning of the story, where the relationships between people were the most important point about sharing and passing information. From this perspective, it is easy to understand why the now outdated copyright laws and business models of the printed book industry should be modernized. They should take more into account the balance of people's relationships, instead of staying focused on the defense of an impossible property. In the emerging virtual book market - made possible by the existence of digitalization, print-on-demand and the Internet - intellectual property is not the only impossible legal concept. Justice as the art of sharing scarcity is also useless. Easy to read, this book proposes guidelines to modernize copyright law and a philosophy of justice suited to the virtual economy. Without it, it will be impossible either to create an efficient copyright law or to collectively draw on all the benefits that new communication technologies can bring us.