Authors in Court: Scenes from the Theater of Copyright

Mark Rose (University of California, Santa Barbara), Authors in Court (Harvard University Press 2016).

"Through a series of vivid case studies, Authors in Court charts the 300-year-long dance between authorship and copyright that has shaped each institution’s response to changing social norms of identity, privacy, and celebrity. Authors’ self-presentations in court are often inflected by prevailing concepts of propriety and respectability. And judges, for their part, have not been immune to the reputation and standing of the authors who have appeared before them in legal dramas.

Some authors strut their roles on the public stage. For example, Napoleon Sarony—the nineteenth-century photographer whose case established that photographs might be protected as works of art—was fond of marching along Broadway dressed in a red fez and high-top campaign boots, proclaiming his special status as a celebrity. Others, such as the reclusive J. D. Salinger, enacted their dramas precisely by shrinking from attention. Mark Rose’s case studies include the flamboyant early modern writer Daniel Defoe; the self-consciously genteel poet Alexander Pope; the nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe; the once-celebrated early twentieth-century dramatist Anne Nichols, author of Abie’s Irish Rose; and the provocative contemporary artist Jeff Koons.

These examples suggest not only how social forms such as gender and gentility have influenced the self-presentation of authors in public and in court but also how the personal styles and histories of authors have influenced the development of legal doctrine."

—Publisher's description

Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class

Scott Timburg, Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class (Yale University Press, 2015).

"Scott Timberg considers the human cost as well as the unintended consequences of shuttered record stores, decimated newspapers, music piracy, and a general attitude of indifference. He identifies social tensions and contradictions—most concerning the artist’s place in society—that have plunged the creative class into a fight for survival. Timberg shows how America’s now-collapsing middlebrow culture—a culture once derided by intellectuals like Dwight Macdonald—appears, from today’s vantage point, to have been at least a Silver Age. Timberg’s reporting is essential reading for anyone who works in the world of culture, knows someone who does, or cares about the work creative artists produce."
—Publisher’s website

Art, Cultural Heritage and the Market: Ethical and Legal Issues

Valentina Vadi & Hildegard E.G.S. Schneider (Maastricht University) (eds.). Art, Cultural Heritage and the Market (Springer, 2014).

"Contemporary intersections between art, cultural heritage and the market are complicated by a variety of ethical and legal issues, which often describe complex global relations. Should works of art be treated differently from other goods? What happens if a work of art, currently exhibited in a museum, turns out to have originally been looted? What is the relevant legal framework? What should be done with ancient shipwrecks filled with objects from former colonies? Should such objects be kept by the finders? Should they be returned to the country of origin? This book addresses these different questions while highlighting the complex interplay between legal and ethical issues in the context of cultural governance. The approach is mainly legal but interdisciplinary aspects are considered as well."
—From publisher's website

Comic Art, Creativity and the Law

Marc H. Greenberg (Golden Gate University). Comic Art, Creativity and the Law (Edward Elgar, 2014).

"The creation of works of comic art, including graphic novels, comic books, cartoons and comic strips, and political cartoons, is affected, and at times limited, by a diverse array of laws, ranging from copyright law to free speech laws. This book examines how this intersection affects the creative process, and proposes approaches that encourage, rather than limit, that process in the comic art genre. Attention to the role comic art occupies in popular culture, and how the law responds to that role, is also analyzed."

—Publisher's website