Jason Mazzone

I picked this up from the library as a bit of light reading. Ever since taking an intellectual property class in my program I have been really interested in it. When I saw this book I knew that it would be something I would want to read. I thought this book would be about all intellectual property but the author really focuses on copyright mostly with some mention of trademarks and barely anything about patents.

The author does a great job of explaining copyright and trademarks. I also feel that he explained fair use (which he is constantly mentioning) and public domain works well. He does seem to harp on fair use and public domain a lot. I do agree with him that fair use is being eroded and that the public domain is not being protected.

While I agree with him that content providers, publishers, archives, museums and the like are over-expanding their copyright and trademark rights I don't quite agree with his solutions. He seems a bit naive when he talks about his solutions. Creating a new agency just to deal with fair use or having a private attorney general, those won't be abused, right?? He does acknowledge that the private attorney general idea could be abused by unsavory lawyers but I don't think his measures to stop the abuse were harsh enough. I have to give him credit for actually coming up with some solutions when many are just ignoring the problem.

I would recommend this book to people wanting to learn more about copyright law and the problems we are having with it.… (mais)

Another book about intellectual property owners’ overreaching, with a chapter on trademark but mostly about copyright claims—claims to own public domain works, claims that there’s no such thing as fair use, contracts that deny fair use rights, and so on. Mazzone suggests administrative solutions—have an agency make rules for what’s fair use, and overriding private agreements to the contrary. I’m not a fan of agency determinations; I don’t think they’d solve the basic problem of resource disparities and intimidation, but I do like the idea of imposing public policy limits on corporations, and making it easier to recover damages from someone who wrongly asserts copyright claims over a public domain work or a fair use. But unfortunately, the law is moving further away from that—Congress recently amended the patent law to make it harder to recover against false patent claims, and it’s all we can do to beat back increases in copyright protection. Changing norms may be our only feasible defense in the US, though matters are potentially more balanced elsewhere.… (mais)