Show HN: Copy This Book. An Artist’s Guide to Copyright

It’s been out for a while now, but I realised I hadn’t done a Show HN yet. I’d like to share a link to my first book! The linked page includes the books outline and a link to a sample chapter.

Copy This Book is an artist’s guide to copyright, that intends to be both practical and critical. There exist quite some theory with a critical perspective (Lessig etcetera), but most of the practical introductions to copyright take a more conservative approach.

Artists’ relationship to copyright can be paradoxical: on the one hand, it allows them a degree of control over the distribution of and remuneration for their work, on the other hand it restricts their creative freedom to sample, adapt and appropriate. I tried to cover both aspects. It takes a EU-focused centred approach, but also takes care to highlight the main differences with the US.

Throughout the years Hacker News has been really useful source in learning about the latest developments of copyright intersecting with the information society—it often seems like hackers are more tuned in on the latest developments in intellectual property than most creatives. Note that in art I also include programming—there’s a chapter dedicated to code.