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Article: Copyright Act of 1976
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Copyright Act of 1976
Shubha Ghosh
I
n the 1990s John Perry Barlow, former songwriter for The Grateful Dead and contemporary social commentator, announced that copyright law was dying. What prompted this prognosis was the birth and fast growth of the Internet. In a world where information could be readily produced and copied and distributed, Barlow reasoned, copyright law could not limit the ability of people to copy songs, books, and movies. Barlow's famous eulogy for copyright illustrates the challenges confronting the law in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Our story begins with the player piano and ends with Napster.
THE PIANO ROLL
Copyright law faced its first ...