Bound By Law: the "Understanding Comics" of copyright

by Cory Doctorow, October 24, 2008 4:14 AM [via]

Duke University Press has just released an expanded edition of “Bound By Law”, the comic book by three law professors about copyright, fair use, and documentary film. It includes a new Introduction by Cory Doctorow and Foreword by Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, and is freely available under a Creative Commons license.

From Cory’s Introduction: "This is a sensible book about a ridiculous subject. It’s an example of the principle it illustrates: that taking from the culture around us to make new things is what culture is all about, it's what culture is for. Culture is that which we use to communicate.

"The comic form makes this issue into something less abstract, more concrete, and the Duke Public Domain folks who produced this have not just written a treatise on copyright, they’ve produced a loving tribute to the form of comics.

"It’s a book whose time has come. Read it, share it. Get angry. Do something. Document your world."

Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain, New Expanded Edition