Richardson, Megan; Bosland, Jason --- "Copyright and the New Street Literature" [2009] ELECD 442; in Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William (eds), "Intellectual Property Policy Reform" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Policy Reform

Editor(s): Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441637

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Copyright and the New Street Literature

Author(s): Richardson, Megan; Bosland, Jason

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

10. Copyright and the new street
literature
Megan Richardson and Jason Bosland

I. INTRODUCTION
Street literature has `always had more influence than polite literature', accord-
ing to Leslie Shepard (Shepard 1973, p. 35),1 an influence he attributes to the
individuality of its opinions, distinct literary style and its links with the `fierce
energy of the crowds' (p. 14). Historically, courts have been remarkably
restrained in their use of copyright law to control impolite, street, literature,
notwithstanding efforts by established magazines and newspapers including
The Times to encourage them to do so in a series of cases in the late 19th
century. Indeed, in these cases the seeds of modern `fair dealing' defences to
infringement were sown with the result that a rich discourse of diverse opin-
ions was fostered by the law.
We suggest that an historical review of the cases is now timely because of
a proliferation of a new street literature ­ the blogs, newsgroups and other
ephemeral sites of information and debate about news and current events that
can be found on the internet ­ and a worryingly successful attempt to use
copyright law to control its more impolite aspects in the case of Los Angeles
Times v Free Republic.2 Our argument is not for statutory law reform but
rather for a revival of the historically sympathetic treatment by courts of `non-
transformative' uses of copyright material where such uses are for free speech
ends.


II. THE OLD STREET LITERATURE
The old street literature came in many ...