Authors and Owners: Invention of Copyright - Hardcover

Rose, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674053087 ISBN 13: 9780674053083

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1993

Synopsis

The notion of the author as the creator and therefore first owner of a work is deeply rooted both in our economic system and in our concept of the individual. But this conception of authorship is modern. Mark Rose traces its formation in 18th-century Britain - and, in the process, highlights issues still current in intellectual property. The twin conception of author as owner and work as commodity took shape, Rose shows, in a long, legal and commercial struggle over the nature of literary property that developed after the passage of the Statute of Anne in 1710, the world's first copyright statute. This struggle, which led to the landmark case of Donaldson v. Becket in 1774, engaged many of the leading jurists of the period, including Lord Mansfield and William Blackstone. Classical notions of property were blended with an emergent literary discourse of original genius, and the modern representation of the author as proprietor was produced. "Authors and Owners" is an analysis of an important episode in legal history and a contribution to literary and cultural history.

About this title

Review:

An elegant and concise study. -- John Sutherland "London Review of Books" Serves as a model of how literary theory can breathe new life into a well-known and perhaps even fashionable subject by endowing it with conceptual discipline. Rose's erudite book is not a practitioner's manual nor an exposition of modern copyright law, but is a valuable contribution to the history and philosophy of copyright. -- William L. Hayhurst "Canadian Business Law Journal" [An] elegant and concise study. -- John Sutherland "London Review of Books" An elegant book; stylishly written, pleasingly designed and meticulously documented and researched.--Jane Dorner "Times Higher Education Supplement " [Rose's] erudite book is not a practitioner's manual nor an exposition of modern copyright law, but is a valuable contribution to the history and philosophy of copyright.--William L. Hayhurst "Canadian Business Law Journal " [An] elegant and concise study.--John Sutherland "London Review of Books "

About the Author:

Mark Rose is Director of the University of California at Irvine Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0674053087
• ISBN 13: 9780674053083
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 190