Is It Ours?

Art, Copyright, and Public Interest

By: Martha Buskirk

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Hardcover | 11 May 2021 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
304 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.54 x 1.78 x 0.15

Hardcover

$111.75

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Exploring artistic authorship and intellectual property in the contemporary world.

If you have tattoos, who owns the rights to the imagery inked on your body? What about the photos you just shared on Instagram? And what if you are an artist, responding to the surrounding landscape of preexisting cultural forms? Most people go about their days without thinking much about intellectual property, but it shapes all aspects of contemporary life. It is a constantly moving target, articulated through a web of laws that are different from country to country, sometimes contradictory, often contested. Some protections are necessary-not only to benefit creators and inventors but also to support activities that contribute to the culture at large-yet overly broad ownership rights stifle innovation.

Is It Ours? takes a fresh look at issues of artistic expression and creative protection as they relate to contemporary law. Exploring intellectual property, particularly copyrights, Martha Buskirk draws connections between current challenges and early debates about how something intangible could be defined as property. She examines bonds between artist and artwork, including the ways that artists or their heirs retain control over time. The text engages with fundamental questions about the interplay between authorship and ownership and the degree to which all expressions and inventions develop in response to innovations by others. Most importantly, this book argues for the necessity of sustaining a vital cultural commons.

Industry Reviews

"Buskirk's critical, nuanced take on copyright includes varied, important topics, such as a deep dive on the shortcomings of our fair-use exceptions to copyright; discussions on who benefits from copyright restrictions (author or publisher); how to consider moral or personhood rights of the author; and the challenges that fake or forged artwork poses to the art world. . . . Is It Ours? exposes the challenges of applying a uniform system to a diverse set of art through examples of cases that involve text, painting, sculpture, music, film, photography, digital images, etc." * ARLIS/NA Reviews *

"The meticulously researched material makes this text a good reference for librarians, faculty, and graduate students desiring context for the constantly evolving copyright landscape and its impact on our culture."

* College & Research Libraries *
"Is It Ours? provides an impressive range of lawsuits and other conflicts within and beyond the contemporary art world emblematic of different problems that arise when copyright and other types of intellectual property function as a powerful economic engine." * Art Journal *

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