• A concise introduction to the major issues and debates involving modern copyright law in the United States
• Clarifies the definition and purpose of copyright, as well as ways in which the law has changed in recent years
• Addresses recent controversies, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
• Contains a discussion on potential future reforms or revisions of copyright law

     
Copyright law was once an esoteric backwater, the special province of professional authors, publishers, and media companies. This is no longer the case. In the age of social media and cloud storage, we have become a copying and sharing culture. Much of our everyday communication, work, and entertainment now directly involves copyright law.
    
Copyright law and policy are ferociously contested. Record labels, movie studios, book publishers, newspapers, and many authors rage that those who share music, video, text, and images over the Internet are.
    
In Copyright: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Neil Netanel explains the concepts needed to understand the heated debates about copyright law and policy. He identifies the combatants, unpacks their arguments, and illuminates what is at stake in the debates over copyright's present and future.