The public domain: enclosing the commons of the mind
Open accessAbstract
Our music, our culture, our science and our economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In his award-winning book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception.
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References 56 · Cited by 496
- Authors
- Boyle, J.
- Corresponding author
- Boyle, James
- Venue
- Choice Reviews Online
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 2009-07-01
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 46-6473-46-6473
- ISSN
- 0009-4978 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-8253
- OpenAlex
- W1591989779
- Cited by
- 496
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2024: 29 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 60 · 2013: 43 · 2012: 60
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- open.clemson.edu
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- Choice Reviews Online (publishedVersion)
- TigerPrints (Clemson University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Duke Law Scholarship Repository (Duke University) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Library - Books MetaLibrary (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Yale University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Intellectual Property Law
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Intellectual Property Rights and Media
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Intellectual Property and Patents
- Keywords
- public domain, intellectual property, copyright, patents, trademarks, commons, gene sequence, business idea, music composition, jazz, World Wide Web, cultural heritage
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