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Halbert, Debora --- "Creativity Without Copyright: Anarchist Publishers and their Approaches to Copyright Protection" [2011] ELECD 432; in Ghosh, Shubha; Malloy, Paul Robin (eds), "Creativity, Law and Entrepreneurship" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Creativity, Law and Entrepreneurship

Editor(s): Ghosh, Shubha; Malloy, Paul Robin

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848449879

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Creativity Without Copyright: Anarchist Publishers and their Approaches to Copyright Protection

Author(s): Halbert, Debora

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

8. Creativity without copyright:
anarchist publishers and their
approaches to copyright protection
Debora Halbert

INTRODUCTION

Book publishers have been players in the copyright debate at least since
the `battle of the booksellers' over the Statute of Anne at the end of the
18th century.1 The recent litigation against Google and the ensuing set-
tlement suggests that publishers remain strong advocates of copyright
protection.2 In fact, the mission statement of the Association of American
Publishers (AAP), an organization representing hundreds of imprints in
the United States, makes protection of intellectual property a primary
goal.3 Their agenda items include: `To nurture creativity by protecting
and strengthening intellectual property rights, especially copyright,'4 sug-
gesting that American publishers advocate for copyright protection and
the paradigm for cultural production it supports. Despite the publishing
industry's centrality to the copyright debates and strong advocacy for a
system of copyright, how copyright is used by the book industry has not
been thoroughly studied.5
Existing studies of the publishing industry do not focus on copyright
or the benefits of copyright for the industry. The now classic study of
the publishing industry conducted by Lewis A. Coser, Charles Kadushin
and Walter W. Powell, was based upon sociological research in the 1970s
and includes little about copyright.6 John B. Thompson produced a more
recent study of the publishing industry in 2005,7 but focused on digital
issues as they impact books without much attention paid to copyright. To
the degree copyright is mentioned, ...