Controlling Voices: Intellectual Property, Humanistic Studies, and the Internet [Paperback]

TyAnna K Herrington (Author), Jay David Bolter (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2001

TyAnna K. Herrington explains current intellectual property law and examines the effect of the Internet and ideological power on its interpretation. Promoting a balanced development of our national culture, she advocates educators’ informed participation in ensuring egalitarian public access to information. She discusses the control of information and the creation of knowledge in terms of the way control functions under current property law.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Compelling and significant, . . . this book calls our attention to an important issue for communication studies, humanities, and most of U.S. and world culture at the turn of the century: intellectual property and how legal constructions are often at odds with the dominant paradigms of most academic disciplines. [Herrington] argues that the Internet forces us to examine our practices and ideologies in relation to intellectual property law and asks us to take action to ensure that the balance built into the U.S. Constitution remains in place. In particular, this book argues that the legal trends of protectionism, corporate ownership, and rights of owners (versus rights of the public) are at odds with traditional academic norms and with the norms of Internet culture. Anyone, particularly any academic, who works with distance education, on-line publishing, Internet-based classrooms, or Internet research will find this book to be of great interest.”—Laura J. Gurak, author of Persuasion and Privacy in Cyberspace

“Herrington’s book should be required reading for academics, especially those in the humanities. The author explains the legal definitions and issues with care and clarity; she demystifies the complexities of constitutional and statutory law concerning copyright and intellectual property. Just as important, she shows how various interest groups seek to manipulate the debate by controlling the legal terms through which the debate is conducted. She argues persuasively that our society needs to weigh the economic interests of the owners of intellectual work against the larger academic and public interests in making this work available. She demonstrates that the problem is too important to be left to the lawyers.”—Jay David Bolter, from the Foreword

About the Author

TyAnna K. Herrington is an assistant professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She earned her J.D. in 1985 and her Ph.D. in 1997.

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (March 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809323737
• ISBN-13: 978-0809323739
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,732,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Where's the DMCA?, February 15, 2008

By 

Miss Bella (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Controlling Voices: Intellectual Property, Humanistic Studies, and the Internet (Paperback)

Maybe this was written by an attorney, but I doubt it. This was not useful as a research tool. Written in 2001, it failed to mention the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a hugely significant piece of legislation for intellectual property rights on the internet. Its omission is completely horrifying.

Further, the discussion of black letter law is all first year law school stuff. Not a tool for lawyers. Or anyone. Really, without the DMCA this book isn't applicable to current law.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Opinion of an Intellectual, August 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Controlling Voices: Intellectual Property, Humanistic Studies, and the Internet (Paperback)

I purchased the book to learn more about intellectual property. I could easily tell it was written by an attorney with the gift of gab. Overall the book had some very valid points, did a good job of covering intellectual property laws, just a little hard to follow.