Thad McIlroy - The Future of Publishing

1. Copyright on the Internet

By Professor Thomas G. Field, Jr., revised July 2006 (http://www.piercelaw.edu/tfield/copynet.htm)

This site provides a brief and balanced overview of the many complex issues here, as well as some useful links.

2. Lawrence Lessig

http://lessig.org/

Who would have thought that copyright law could produce a superstar? Professor Lessig is the man! I believe he has done more than most of his colleagues thrown together to help us understand where the real challenges lie when copyright meets the Internet. He doesn't just ponder the topic or write about it: he takes very constructive and deliberate action. Here's Lessig's bio from his site:

"Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

"Professor Lessig represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online."

"Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001), Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999) and Code 2.0 (2006). He chairs the Creative Commons project, and serves on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge. He is also a columnist for Wired.

"Professor Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale.

"Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace."

3. Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown

By Steven Levy, Wired, October 2002, (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/lessig.html)

A dated, but very well-written profile of Lessig and his activities: good background on a man fighting for the future of publishing.

4. Copyright and the Internet: Is There a Canadian Way?

By Professor Michael Geist, undated: perhaps February 2005, (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/731/146/)

Most people are not aware that copyright laws differ substantially from country to country. I'm not talking the U.S. and China; I'm talking, for example, Canada and the United States.

Dr. Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. His Web site (noted above) is a rich source of information on copyright and the Internet both from the Canadian and the international perspective.

5. Internet Resources for Copyright

Published by the University of Delaware Library, last modified 4/11/07 (http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/copyright/internet/)

Talk about a cornucopia of information on a single trenchant subject. A site not to miss.