The Constitution of the United States. 

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

A great Harper's article on the relationship of authorship to creation.  Highlights:

"Any text that has infiltrated the common mind to the extent of Gone With the Wind or Lolita or Ulysses inexorably joins the language of culture. A map-turned-to-landscape, it has moved to a place beyond enclosure or control. The authors and their heirs should consider the subsequent parodies, refractions, quotations, and revisions an honor, or at least the price of a rare success." 

I've long thought that a reasonable plan. 

A graphic novel about fair use, Bound By Law explores copyright issues through an entertaining story about the trials and tributations of a heroic documentary film maker.
“Will a spiky-haired, camera-toting super-heroine... restore decency and common sense to the world of creative endeavor?” -Paul Bonner, The Herald-Sun
"Bound By Law lays out a sparkling, witty, moving and informative story about how the eroded public domain has made documentary filmmaking into a minefield.” -Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net

As we learned in Lessig's book, there are barriers to access of creative works beyond the strictures of copyright law, including licensing agreements and cost constraints. As a major research university, Penn produces a tremendous amount of valuable, copyrightable content. However, Penn authors often do not keep rights to their work and the University must buy back the work from journal publishers with considerable restrictions on use. This guide describes ways that faculty and other authors can negotiate with journal publishers to maintain some rights to their own works while continuing to participate in the publication of research articles.

This page is part of the documentation guide in Penns Online Research Tutorial, which describes documentation stles and helps with writing papers. The copyright page is an introduction to copyright issues for undergraduates at Penn. It very succinctly describes what copyright is, what kinds of works are copyrighted, what fair use is, and how to copyright your own work.

This is an introduction to copyright issues for undergraduates at Penn. It explains how you can use works without getting sued.

A graphic novel about fair use, Bound By Law explores copyright issues ithrough an entertaining story about the trials and tributations of a heroic documentary film maker.

“Will a spiky-haired, camera-toting super-heroine... restore decency and common sense to the world of creative endeavor?” -Paul Bonner, The Herald-Sun

“Bound By Law lays out a sparkling, witty, moving and informative story about how the eroded public domain has made documentary filmmaking into a minefield.” -Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net

FreeCulture.org's 2006 National Summit
April 21-23, Swarthmore College

This project is a systematic study of why and how it makes sense for commercial companies and noncommercial institutions active in culture, education, and media to make certain materials widely available for free, and also how free services are finding new (sometimes commercial) ways of becoming sustainable.

Site includes MP3s of lots of the shows. 

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