40 North | 88 West: Champaign County Arts, Culture and Entertainment Council
Art is here. See it. Create it. Support it. Watch how it helps our community grow.

BOUND BY LAW - Comic Book on Copyright & Creativity

April 26, 2006
Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has just released "BOUND BY LAW?" - a comic book on copyright and creativity -- specifically, documentary film. It has been published under a Creative Commons License.  The comic, by Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins explores the benefits of copyright in a digital age, but also the threats to cultural history posed by a “permissions culture,” and the erosion of “fair use” and the public domain.  

You can read or download the whole thing for free at http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/

"Bound By Law stars Akiko, a curvaceous, muscular filmmaker (think Tomb Raider's Lara Croft with spiky hair) planning to shoot a documentary about a day in the life of New York City...[It] translates law into plain English and abstract ideas into 'visual metaphors.' So the comic's heroine, Akiko, brandishes a laser gun as she fends off a cyclopean 'Rights Monster' - all the while learning copyright law basics, including the line between fair use and copyright infringement." - Brandt Goldstein, The Wall Street Journal online