does anyone know any good books on the history of copyright or intellectual property?
@exiliaex "Theft: A History of Music" and the other books available for free at https://www.thepublicdomain.org/
I have a bunch at home.
@exiliaex If you have a particular interest in a certain POV, I might have a recommendation.
@lethargilistic i'm asking on behalf of someone else, quoting them
"my history of IP is shaky at the moment; I'm aware of the broad strokes, but intellectual property has a lot of different facets, all of which have their own histories. As such, I'm looking for books and articles that go over that history in more detail, i.e when those laws were passed and why.
In addition, if you have articles that talk about what the world might look like without IP, that would also be cool. It helps to be able to give people alternatives."
@exiliaex Ah, well I don't have a general recommendation at the moment, but one reason they may be having trouble finding books about IP written in the past is that the term "intellectual property" barely existed before the 1990s. Google ngram it next to "copyright." Media corporations started using it to lobby together for copyright expansions like the DMCA. And it's debatable that the things we talk about as "IP" should even be grouped at all because each thing under the umbrella has different justifications.
If they're interested in the history of copyright law, they should start with copyright law and cut IP generally out of their search.