Public Rights

"In this book we examine copyright law primarily from the perspective of the users of works (in aggregate, 'the public'), rather than from the usual perspective of authors or copyright owners. The central question we ask is 'what can users do with works, without obtaining the permission of a copyright owner?' By putting the rights and abilities of users in the foreground, rather than relegating them to what is left after the exclusive rights are exhausted, we provide a new and comprehensive account of copyright's public domain, and of the 'public rights' which comprise it. We regard the public domain as not just important, but essential: for intellectual development, for public discourse, and (not least) for replenishing the sources which nourish creativity. This book is a global examination, because copyright public domains are different in every country, in ways which are both important and complex. Nevertheless, there are globally consistent elements arising from both the constraints of international copyright law (sometimes weaker than imagined), and from the more recent uniformities arising from the globalising force of the Internet and its primarily expansive effects on public domains. Without claiming to be comprehensive, we present both the global elements of the copyright public domain, and the great extent of its national diversities"--