Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/New York University/Copyright, Commerce, and Culture (Spring 2013)/Course description

In this course we focus on a legal subject that is increasingly located at the heart of many social, cultural, economic, and political conflicts: copyright law. While initially codified as a state granted monopoly designed to to encourage publishers and established authors to invest in culture, the digital revolution has injected copyright law into every part of our day to day life and interaction with media. But what is really at stake in the copyright battles? Does our law provide effective incentives for producing culture? Should culture be owned? Does it even make sense to call it “intellectual property”? In our efforts to better understand these issues, we will read both primary and secondary materials, covering subjects ranging from the birth of copyright to contemporary justifications for copyright reform.

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