...McPherson, August 13, 1813, p. 6. 37278_u00.qxd 8/28/08 11:04 AM Page ii James Boyle The Public Domain Enclosing the Commons of the Mind Yale Uni... ...son, August 13, 1813, p. 6. 37278_u00.qxd 8/28/08 11:04 AM Page ii James Boyle The Public Domain Enclosing the Commons of the Mind Yale Universit... ... book. For more information, visit www.caravanbooks.org. Copyright © 2008 by James Boyle. All rights reserved. The author has made an online version o... ...n particular. I was also inspired and informed by colleagues and students in computer science, English, history, and political science. But the work I... ...a colleague—helped in more ways than I can count. A number of scientists and computer scientists made me see things I other- wise would not have—Drew ... ...nt copyright law regime, it largely holds for their patent and trademark law systems, and utilitarian strands suffuse even “the sacred rights of autho... ... of other countries, including Britain, concluded that their national patent systems were doomed. Various proposals were made to replace patents, with... ...free to the autodidact.) We can imagine language, scientific knowledge, basic algebra, the tonic scale, or the classics of four-hundred-year-old litera... ...e more abstractly these are described, the more they come to resemble simple algebraic expressions, replete with “if, then” statements and instruc- ti...

...e that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why...