Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2001

Abstract

In this review, I will first briefly address Professor Litman's evocation of the copyright law-making process. Her discussion of legislative history presents a valuable and compelling account, especially for those unfamiliar with copyright law. Nonetheless, it is not a principal focus of this review. For those who read the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (many of whom may well be copyright lawyers), the most provocative portions of the book, to which I will devote most attention, are likely to be the chapters in which Professor Litman (a) reviews and challenges various metaphors for copyright policy (Chapter 5, "Choosing Metaphors"); (b) in which she recounts the rocky relationship between copyright owners and developers of new technological means of disseminating works (Chapter 10, "The Copyright Wars"); and (c) in which she offers her own prescription for a simple, fair and workable copyright law (Chapter 12, "Revising Copyright Law for the Information Age"). DIGITAL COPYRIGHT does not dispel our disagreements about copyright's goals and proper scope; if anything, because Professor Litman is such an effective advocate, she has forced me to think harder about why, in many (though far from all) respects, I remain unconvinced. The following review therefore endeavors not only to present Professor Litman's arguments, but to offer some reasons for continued resistence to some of those claims.

Disciplines

Intellectual Property Law | Law

Comments

Digital Copyright by Jessica D. Litman, Prometheus Books, 2006.

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