Following the last week’s publication of the working paper Copyright History in Review, CREATe is delighted to present a further working paper about copyright history: a re-print of the introductory chapter of Dr Elena Cooper’s monograph Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP, 2018). Elena has provided this introductory note:

Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image is the first in-depth and longitudinal account of the history of copyright relating to the visual arts and concerns the protection of painting, engraving and photography in the UK 1850-1911. Together with the copyright history monographs which I discuss in Copyright History in Review, Art and Modern Copyright can be seen as part of a new wave of recently published scholarship which shifts the focus of copyright history away from its longstanding concern with the protection of books and literary works, to other subject matter (visual arts, drama and news). In the Introduction to Art and Modern Copyright,  I argue that art added something new to the making of modern copyright law in the UK – the history of artistic copyright was in many respects distinct from the history of literary copyright – and I provide an overview of the thematic chapters of my book that substantiate that claim: the protection of copyright ‘authors’ (i.e. the claims to protection advanced by painters, photographers and engravers), art collectors, sitters and the public interest. I also make a number of more general claims about the value of copyright history. In particular, rather than looking to history to uncover a point of origin or foundational moment, I draw attention to the value of history as a destabilising influence. In taking us to ways of thinking about copyright that, in some respects, differ starkly from our own and have no authority today or continuity with the present, history can sharpen the critical lens through which we view current copyright debates and lend to us a more flexible way of thinking through legal challenges today.

Following the announcement on this blog in January, CREATe is delighted to present the third entry in our working paper series released in 2021: Copyright History in Review, which is a re-print of four reviews of recent scholarly books by CREATe’s Dr Elena Cooper published in The Burlington Magazine, Law and History Review, Law, Culture and the Humanities and the Modern Law Review. Elena comments as follows:

In the first three reviews, concerning the work of Katie Scott (Becoming Property, 2018, Yale University Press), Derek Miller (Copyright and the Value of Performance , 2018, CUP) and Will Slauter (Who Owns the News?, 2019, Stanford University Press) I chart a change in recent copyright history scholarship: a shift in the focus of copyright history away from books and literary works to other subject matter (visual art, drama and news). These reviews can be read in conjunction with the forthcoming CREATe Working Paper Introduction to Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP, 2018), which is a re-print of the introductory chapter of my own recent monograph Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (the first in depth and longitudinal study of copyright and the visual arts, concerning painting, engraving and photography the UK, 1850-1911). The final review concerns a collection of essays concerning the history of intellectual property more generally edited by Claudy Op den Kamp and Dan Hunter (A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects, 2019, CUP) which examines the history of intellectual property law through the lens of 50 different objects. Taken together, the reviews reveal the depth and breadth of historical work in the field and the richness of historical perspectives as a terrain for future study. Those interested to learn more about recent developments in copyright history may wish to attend the Roundtable discussion Copyright History, Book History and Art History: An Interdisciplinary Conversation organised by Will Slauter, and forming part of the annual conference the Society of the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (26-30 July 2021) – to which I will be contributing, along with Katie Scott, Oren Bracha, Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire, Ian Gadd and Will Slauter. Further details about this event will be released later this year.