Why read Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs?

Book cover of Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs

Book description

Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Not only books but wallpaper, computer programs, pop songs, cartoon characters,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Joe Mahoney

Author

This book really is a tremendous tour guide through the history of copyright and related subjects. And it’s more than just a history: it also makes a resounding case that we’ve taken the whole idea of copyright too far.

Initially this happened accidentally, in a series of unrelated legal rulings influenced by heavy lobbying, helped along by unfortunate choices of wording in legal judgments. But gradually it dawned on people that there was a lot of money to be made in intellectual property. And by lot, I mean A LOT.

From Joe's 3 favorite reads in 2024.