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Vanderbilt Law Review

First Page

1433

Abstract

Interest in copyright law is on the upswing. The reason is simple: copyright law, and more generally, intellectual property law, is the law for the information age. The subject touches not only the traditional concerns of artists, writers, and musicians, but also reaches the cable television and computer industries as well as future technologies not yet thought of. I predict course offerings on copyright and intellectual property law will proliferate. Before publication of Craig Joyce's Copyright Law, the growing market for copyright casebooks was already well served by three excellent and diverse works' that would satisfy all tastes and approaches to the subject. With this fourth major work in the field, a copyright law professor's choice of casebooks becomes more difficult.

Every major casebook publisher now has published its copyright law casebook except for Little, Brown & Company. Each work has its own strong personality, and each brings a unique approach to the study of copyright law. Most recently I have used Joyce's book for my two-hour copyright law course, although I have used the other three casebooks in one or more of their editions in the past. Apart from a few inevitable disagreements about coverage and organization, I have been basically pleased by all four casebooks. My purpose here is not only to introduce Joyce's casebook but to situate his work in this already crowded and competitive field. I plan to do this by first presenting Joyce's book and then by discussing the three other casebooks: Latman, Gorman,and Ginsberg; Nimmer; and Brown and Denicola.

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