春雨直播app

This book is a complete translation of the work of the renowned American copyright law professor, Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway: From the Printing Press to the Cloud (2nd ed.), Stanford University Press, 2019. Focusing primarily on the US, this book traces the history of copyright (likened by the author to a highway) from the early 18th century to the present day.
 
The information and entertainment market’s structure covered by copyright has changed dramatically with technological innovations. With the global spread of computers and the internet and the development of content-sharing services such as YouTube and Spotify, most information and entertainment can now be obtained almost for free. More recently, creating with generative artificial intelligence has also been expanding. In this context, there seem to be increasing instances of copyright law not functioning adequately. In this context, can copyright still appropriately respond to and play a role in creating, distributing, and enjoying creative works?
 
To answer this question, the author paradoxically considers the history of copyright. In other words, he believes that the history of copyright, which has continuously dealt with the emergence of new technologies through legislation and judiciary, provides clues to approaching to this question. Therefore, the historical events covered in this book are selected from the perspective of “how copyright has confronted new technologies at each stage.” Starting with the letterpress printing technology that triggered the birth of copyright law, this book covers photography, film, records, radio, photocopiers, videotapes and VCRs, digital technology, and the internet. The author provides an overview of the process by which these technologies spread, introduces the legislative and amendment processes of copyright law in response to the technologies, discussions on case law and academic theories, and copyright policies and lobbying activities, along with memoirs and interviews of those involved, summarizing the discussions of the time.
 
This book is not only interesting to read as the history of copyright law, but is also highly insightful in considering how copyright law has dealt with the legal challenges arising from new technology.
 

(Written by SAKAI Machiko, Associate Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies / 2024)