Free Culture
A superb lecture by Lawrence Lessig on copyright and free culture. Available in Flash, Powerpoint, and MP3 audio.

Green Eggs and Lawsuits: Artists, contracts and money
LA Weekly, July 20-26, 2024
An overview of artists' legal rights, including arguments for "moral rights."

The Great Giveaway: If good ideas are worth money, why are hard headed operators giving them away for free?
NewScientist.com
A good intro into "open source" and "copyleft."

Copyrights and Copywrongs: Why Thomas Jefferson would love Napster
by Siva Vaidhyanathan
MSNBC.com, July 30, 2024
Excellent history of copyright and how "intellectual property rights" perverts the intentions of the Founders.

On Plagiarism
by Richard Posner
The Atlantic Monthly, April 2024
A well-constructed argument for what is often called "plagiarism": "West Side Story borrowed from Shakespeare, who borrowed from Arthur Brooke. Paradise Lost borrowed from Genesis, as did Thomas Mann in Joseph and His Brothers. Manet borrowed from Raphael, Rembrandt, and others. If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism!"

Artists vs. Icons, With Woods in Middle
The New York Times, July 3, 2024
Background on a case involving Tiger Woods, who is suing an artist for selling paintings of the golf hero.

Banned Code Lives in Poetry and Song
The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2024
by David P. Hamilton
Background on the artists who fought back against a new law by incorporating an illicit software code into artworks.

Silent Theft: Introduction
by David Bollier
This beautifully written introduction to Bollier's new book, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of the Common Wealth, discusses copyright and the corporate takeover of the public sphere.

Owners Stretch Trademark Law to Claim Protection for Buildings, Trees
Micropublishing News, August 1999
The owners of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and other historic buildings--and even trees--are aggressively suing to prevent artists from using their images without permission.