Wikipedia:School and university projects/Open Source Culture/Samuels

The Illustrated Story of Copyright

By Edwards Samuels

New York, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.

The purpose of lawyer Samuels here is to create a reference to electric and electronic civilization. The starting point is, in fact, consideration that electric media like tape recorders or photocopiers, as well as digital media like computers allow everyone to copy and reproduce information and forms. Then, regarding the Internet, Samuel says: “There are no boundaries in cyberspace, and no government or entity can possibly enforce property rights there. Two-hundred-year-old systems of copyright and the interests they protect are obsolete”. The essay examines the issue of copyright into five different media: 1) the book publishing industry, 2) the music industries, 3) the movie and television industries, 4) the computer and computer software industries, 5) some challenges raised by multimedia and the Internet. The book is well illustrated with ancient and rare images. The writing is sometime too formal, according to the author’s purpose to write as if writing law review articles. This is the worst characteristic of the book, because the author remains too objective and rarely takes position. While, the main aspect of the Open Source Culture is that it is growing thanks to discussions and opinions and even too specific perspectives.