To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense PDF Author: William P. Alford
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779295
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This study examines the law of intellectual property in China from imperial times to the present. It draws on history, politics, economics, sociology, and the arts, and on interviews with officials, business people, lawyers, and perpetrators and victims of 'piracy'. The author asks why the Chinese, with their early bounty of scientific and artistic creations, are only now devising legal protection for such endeavors and why such protection is more rhetoric than reality on the Chinese mainland. In the process, he sheds light on the complex relation between law and political culture in China. The book goes on to examine recent efforts in the People's Republic of China to develop intellectual property law, and uses this example to highlight the broader problems with China's program of law reform.

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense PDF Author: William P. Alford
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779295
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study examines the law of intellectual property in China from imperial times to the present. It draws on history, politics, economics, sociology, and the arts, and on interviews with officials, business people, lawyers, and perpetrators and victims of 'piracy'. The author asks why the Chinese, with their early bounty of scientific and artistic creations, are only now devising legal protection for such endeavors and why such protection is more rhetoric than reality on the Chinese mainland. In the process, he sheds light on the complex relation between law and political culture in China. The book goes on to examine recent efforts in the People's Republic of China to develop intellectual property law, and uses this example to highlight the broader problems with China's program of law reform.

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense PDF Author: William P. Alford
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804729603
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This sweeping study examines the law of intellectual property in Chinese civilization from imperial days to the present. It uses materials drawn from law, the arts and other fields as well as extensive interviews with Chinese and foreign officials, business people, lawyers, and perpetrators and victims of "piracy."

To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense

To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense PDF Author: William P. Alford
Publisher: Studies in East Asian Law
ISBN: 9780804722704
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
"This book considers why intellectual property law, and in particular copyright, has never taken hold in China. For purposes of this study, intellectual property is defined principally to encompass copyright, patent, and trademark"--Introduction.

Pirates and Publishers

Pirates and Publishers PDF Author: Fei-Hsien Wang
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171823
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern China In Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the unknown social and cultural history of copyright in China from the 1890s through the 1950s, a time of profound sociopolitical changes. Wang draws on a vast range of previously underutilized archival sources to show how copyright was received, appropriated, and practiced in China, within and beyond the legal institutions of the state. Contrary to common belief, copyright was not a problematic doctrine simply imposed on China by foreign powers with little regard for Chinese cultural and social traditions. Shifting the focus from the state legislation of copyright to the daily, on-the-ground negotiations among Chinese authors, publishers, and state agents, Wang presents a more dynamic, nuanced picture of the encounter between Chinese and foreign ideas and customs. Developing multiple ways for articulating their understanding of copyright, Chinese authors, booksellers, and publishers played a crucial role in its growth and eventual institutionalization in China. These individuals enforced what they viewed as copyright to justify their profit, protect their books, and crack down on piracy in a changing knowledge economy. As China transitioned from a late imperial system to a modern state, booksellers and publishers created and maintained their own economic rules and regulations when faced with the absence of an effective legal framework. Exploring how copyright was transplanted, adopted, and practiced, Pirates and Publishers demonstrates the pivotal roles of those who produce and circulate knowledge.

Contract and Property in Early Modern China

Contract and Property in Early Modern China PDF Author: Madeleine Zelin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804766940
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Providing a new perspective on economic and legal institutions, particularly on contract and property, in Qing and Republican history, this volume provides case studies to explicate how these institutions worked, while situating them firmly in their broader social context.

Engaging the Law in China

Engaging the Law in China PDF Author:
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779287
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book explores legal mobilization, culture, and institutions in contemporary China from a perspective informed by 'law and society' scholarship.

Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law

Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law PDF Author: Jason Mazzone
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779155
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Intellectual property law in the United States does not work well and it needs to be reformed—but not for the reasons given by most critics. The issue is not that intellectual property rights are too easily obtained, too broad in scope, and too long in duration. Rather, the primary problem is overreaching by publishers, producers, artists, and others who abuse intellectual property law by claiming stronger rights than the law actually gives them. From copyfraud—like phony copyright notices attached to the U.S. Constitution—to lawsuits designed to prevent people from poking fun at Barbie, from controversies over digital sampling in hip-hop to Major League Baseball's ubiquitous restriction on sharing any "accounts and descriptions of this game," overreaching claims of intellectual property rights are everywhere. Overreaching interferes with legitimate uses and reproduction of a wide variety of works, imposes enormous social and economic costs, and ultimately undermines creative endeavors. As this book reveals, the solution is not to change the scope or content of intellectual property rights, but to create mechanisms to prevent people asserting rights beyond those they legitimately possess. While there are many other books on intellectual property, this is the first to examine overreaching as a distinct problem and to show how to solve it. Jason Mazzone makes a series of timely proposals by which government, organizations, and ordinary people can stand up to creators and content providers when they seek to grab more than the law gives them.

The Politics of Piracy

The Politics of Piracy PDF Author: Andrew C. Mertha
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501728806
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
China is by far the world's leading producer of pirated goods—from films and books to clothing, from consumer electronics to aircraft parts. As China becomes a full participant in the international economy, its inability to enforce intellectual property rights is coming under escalating international scrutiny. What is the impact, Andrew C. Mertha asks, of external pressure on China's enforcement of intellectual property? The conventional wisdom sees a simple correlation between greater pressure and better domestic compliance with international norms and declared national policy. Mertha's research tells a different story: external pressure may lead to formal agreements in Beijing, resulting in new laws and official regulations, but it is China's complex network of bureaucracies that decides actual policy and enforcement. The structure of the administrative apparatus that is supposed to protect intellectual property rights makes it possible to track variation in the effects of external pressure for different kinds of intellectual property.Mertha shows that while the sustained pressure of state-to-state negotiations has shaped China's patent and copyright laws, it has had little direct impact on the enforcement of those laws. By contrast, sustained pressure from inside China, on the part of foreign trademark-owners and private investigation companies in their employ, provides a far greater rate of trademark enforcement and spurs action from anti-counterfeiting agencies.

Bird in a Cage

Bird in a Cage PDF Author: Stanley B. Lubman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804743785
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
This book analyzes the principal legal institutions that have emerged in China and considers implications for U.S. policy of the limits on China's ability to develop meaningful legal institutions.

No Law

No Law PDF Author: David L. Lange
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804763275
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 613

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Book Description
The original text of the Constitution grants Congress the power to create a regime of intellectual property protection. The first amendment, however, prohibits Congress from enacting any law that abridges the freedoms of speech and of the press. While many have long noted the tension between these provisions, recent legal and cultural developments have transformed mere tension into conflict. No Law offers a new way to approach these debates. In eloquent and passionate style, Lange and Powell argue that the First Amendment imposes absolute limits upon claims of exclusivity in intellectual property and expression, and strips Congress of the power to restrict personal thought and free expression in the name of intellectual property rights. Though the First Amendment does not repeal the Constitutional intellectual property clause in its entirety, copyright, patent, and trademark law cannot constitutionally license the private commodification of the public domain. The authors claim that while the exclusive rights currently reflected in intellectual property are not in truth needed to encourage intellectual productivity, they develop a compelling solution for how Congress, even within the limits imposed by an absolute First Amendment, can still regulate incentives for intellectual creations. Those interested in the impact copyright doctrines have on freedom of expression in the U.S. and the theoretical and practical aspects of intellectual property law will want to take a closer look at this bracing, resonant work.