Links to articles on copyright and other ‘Intellectual Property’ issues

 

 

‘Free software’ guru Richard Stallman has a number of essays indexed here:

 

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html

 

Perhaps the best for an understanding of the conceptual and legal issues is this one:

 

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html

 

This talk, which includes more about the specifics of US copyright law and the music business, is also very good:

 

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html

 

Just for fun (?) a short story Stallman wrote in 1997 to sound the alarm about the direction copyright law was moving (and has continued to move).  Be sure to read the note at the end about subsequent developments..

 

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

 

 

Lawrence Lessig is a law professor who has written extensively on copyright issues.  He is a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and argued the ill-fated Eldrid case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  His book Free Culture is online here:

 

http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-1.html

 

A previous, somewhat more academic book, The Future of Ideas, is online here:

 

http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/

 

 

  His first book, Code, is online here:

 

http://codev2.cc/

 

 

An interesting, though somewhat outdated, interview with Lessig on Slashdot provides a useful overview of his thinking:

 

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/21/155221