Overview

The names of James Joyce and Ezra Pound ring out in the annals of literary modernism, but few recognize the name of Samuel Roth. A brash, business-savvy entrepreneur, Roth made a name--and a profit--for himself as the founding editor and owner of magazines that published selections from foreign writings--especially the risqué parts--without permission. When he reprinted segments of James Joyce's epochal novel Ulysses, the author took him to court.Without Copyrights tells the story of how the clashes between authors, publishers, and literary ""pirates"" influenced both American copyright law and literature itself. From its inception in 1790, American copyright law offered no or less-than-perfect protection for works published abroad--to the fury of Charles Dickens, among others, who sometimes received no money from vast sales in the United States. American publishers avoided ruinous competition with each other through ""courtesy of the trade,"" a code of etiquette that gave informal, exclusive rights to the first house to announce plans to issue an uncopyrighted foreign work. The climate of trade courtesy, lawful piracy, and the burdensome rules of American copyright law profoundly affected transatlantic writers in the twentieth century. Drawing on previously unknown legal archives, Robert Spoo recounts efforts by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Bennett Cerf--the founder of Random House--and others to crush piracy, reform U.S. copyright law, and define the public domain. Featuring a colorful cast of characters made up of frustrated authors, anxious publishers, and willful pirates, Spoo provides an engaging history of the American public domain, a commons shaped by custom as much as by law, and of piracy's complex role in the culture of creativity.

Full Product Details

9780199927876

Table of Contents

Reviews

<br> No work better puts copyright in its place. This beautiful book is essential reading for the remaking copyright will need. --Lawrence Lessig, author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It<p><br>

Robert Spoo takes us into a pioneering, novel, fascinating and challenging historical journey in which he imbues new life into past copyright conflicts that were told from a very specific, and rather limited, perspectives. Spoo opens a new debate that some would argue was closed decades ago-a debate reminding them that authors do not create in a social vacuum, that authors are nurtured by society, other authors and their works, and that without these resources no person could reach the status of an 'author'...I am confident that readers of Spoo's tour-de-froce will agree that he has rigorously reminded us of the many flaws we tend to cherish, and of the long-needed rethinking process of the public domain in contmeporary copyright traditions. Spoo commands a comprehensive understanding of both copyright law and the delicate structure of informal courtesies- not laws-that for decades governed the publication of books written overseas yet read and often printed in the United States. Common Knowledge

<br> No work better puts copyright in its place. This beautiful book is essential reading for the remaking copyright will need. --Lawrence Lessig, author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It<p><br> The public domain is the battleground for some of the fiercest and most consequential struggles in the entire world of intellectual property. By delving into its unexpectedly rich history, Robert Spoo's revelatory book shows why. As we strive for policies, laws, and norms to preserve the public domain and facilitate its creative potential, we need books like this to remind us of how high the stakes really are. --Adrian Johns, author of Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates<p><br> Spoo is a great scholar of both copyright law and literature. He is also a gifted storyteller. This book takes readers on a splendid journey through publishing houses, courtrooms, and legislatures, illuminating the path of American copyright law. --Lior Jacob Strahilevitz, author of Informationand Exclusion<p><br> Robert Spoo's magisterial survey of the legal conditions that both frustrated and enabled the emergence of modernism is many books in one: a previously unwritten chapter in the making of our literature; a unique insight into the complicated dance between intellectual property and cultural production; a subtle exploration of the freighted concept of literary 'piracy;' and--ultimately--a compelling plea for the recognition of a universal public domain. Spoo's deep research and narrative grace make Without Copyrights a deeply satisfying reading experience: the story boasts colorful characters, unexpected incident, and surprising measures of both humor and pathos-and it is told in a voice that is as lively and unexpected as the episodes it recounts. --Peter Jaszi, coauthor of Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright<p><br> A true expert illuminates what is often obscured: how isolationist US laws conditioned the

A riveting account of U.S. copyright law's 'Wild West' origins. Highly recommended. --Library Journal (starred review) No work better puts copyright in its place. This beautiful book is essential reading for the remaking copyright will need. -- Lawrence Lessig, author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It [A] remarkable tale... Careful and definitive. -- Caleb Crain, The Nation Fascinating. -- Publishers Weekly A quite fascinating exploration... Makes for interesting and quite good reading. From its perfect opening anecdote -- James Joyce responding to a Society of Authors complaint about an unauthorized performance of a Shaw play -- to its focus on the fascinating story of Ulysses, it's full of entertaining titbits, and includes a variety of complex characters... Without Copyrights would seem essential reading for anyone dealing with copyright, but it is certainly also of interest to those with only a more casual interest in the law, the times, the authors, and these works. -CompleteReview The public domain is the battleground for some of the fiercest and most consequential struggles in the entire world of intellectual property. By delving into its unexpectedly rich history, Robert Spoo's revelatory book shows why. As we strive for policies, laws, and norms to preserve the public domain and facilitate its creative potential, we need books like this to remind us of how high the stakes really are. --Adrian Johns, author of Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates Spoo is a great scholar of both copyright law and literature. He is also a gifted storyteller. This book takes readers on a splendid journey through publishing houses, courtrooms, and legislatures, illuminating the path of American copyright law. --Lior Jacob Strahilevitz, author of Informationand Exclusion Robert Spoo's magisterial survey of the legal conditions that both frustrated and enabled

A riveting account of U.S. copyright law's 'Wild West' origins. Highly recommended. --Library Journal (starred review) No work better puts copyright in its place. This beautiful book is essential reading for the remaking copyright will need. -- Lawrence Lessig, author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It The many pitfalls and paradoxes of copyright are the subject of Robert Spoo's Without Copyrights, a wonderfully detailed study of how transatlantic modernism was shaped by laws surrounding the production and distribution of texts. What emerges is a revolutionary account of the ways that copyright and obscenity laws determined if, when and where modernist works could travel. -- London Review of Books [A] remarkable tale... Careful and definitive. -- Caleb Crain, The Nation Fascinating. -- Publishers Weekly A quite fascinating exploration... Makes for interesting and quite good reading. From its perfect opening anecdote -- James Joyce responding to a Society of Authors complaint about an unauthorized performance of a Shaw play -- to its focus on the fascinating story of Ulysses, it's full of entertaining titbits, and includes a variety of complex characters... Without Copyrights would seem essential reading for anyone dealing with copyright, but it is certainly also of interest to those with only a more casual interest in the law, the times, the authors, and these works. -CompleteReview The public domain is the battleground for some of the fiercest and most consequential struggles in the entire world of intellectual property. By delving into its unexpectedly rich history, Robert Spoo's revelatory book shows why. As we strive for policies, laws, and norms to preserve the public domain and facilitate its creative potential, we need books like this to remind us of how high the stakes really are. --Adrian Johns, author of Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates

A riveting account of U.S. copyright law's 'Wild West' origins. Highly recommended. --Library Journal (starred review) No work better puts copyright in its place. This beautiful book is essential reading for the remaking copyright will need. --Lawrence Lessig, author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It Fascinating. -- Publishers Weekly The public domain is the battleground for some of the fiercest and most consequential struggles in the entire world of intellectual property. By delving into its unexpectedly rich history, Robert Spoo's revelatory book shows why. As we strive for policies, laws, and norms to preserve the public domain and facilitate its creative potential, we need books like this to remind us of how high the stakes really are. --Adrian Johns, author of Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates Spoo is a great scholar of both copyright law and literature. He is also a gifted storyteller. This book takes readers on a splendid journey through publishing houses, courtrooms, and legislatures, illuminating the path of American copyright law. --Lior Jacob Strahilevitz, author of Informationand Exclusion Robert Spoo's magisterial survey of the legal conditions that both frustrated and enabled the emergence of modernism is many books in one: a previously unwritten chapter in the making of our literature; a unique insight into the complicated dance between intellectual property and cultural production; a subtle exploration of the freighted concept of literary 'piracy;' and--ultimately--a compelling plea for the recognition of a universal public domain. Spoo's deep research and narrative grace make Without Copyrights a deeply satisfying reading experience: the story boasts colorful characters, unexpected incident, and surprising measures of both humor and pathos-and it is told in a voice that is as lively and unexpected as the episodes it recounts. --Peter Jaszi,

Author Information

Robert Spoo is Chapman Distinguished Chair at the University of Tulsa College of Law. He has published extensively on the intersection of copyright law and literature. He is the recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available