College and Research Libraries Book Reviews Patterson, L. Ray, and Stanley W. Lind- berg. The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users' Rights. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Pr., 1991. 27 4p. acid free, $30 (ISBN 0-8203-1347-5). LC 90-28430. It has long been clear to publishers that copyright is the foundation of their industry. Although publishing is a disor- ganized, diverse, and competitive com- munity, publishers of all types-for-profit and not-for-profit, trade and scholarly, print and electronic, indeed, almost every purveyor of any protected work-tend to hold basically similar views of copy- right, at least vis-a-vis users' rights. This consistency derives from what is essen- tially economic self-interest, even for nonprofit publishers, and it has ener- gized a sustained and effective lobbying effort to influence statutory law, the guidelines for its application, and its in- terpretation in the courts. The publish- ers' view of copyright as a private property right has also been imprinted on the public consciousness through highly assertive labeling and well-publi- cized litigation. As a result, copyright as a law of users' rights, along with the deeper implications of copyright for the control of information and knowledge, receive little attention and are generally unfamiliar concepts. The mission of libraries is to provide access to information for the public, in large part through the use of copy- righted works. For that reason copyright must be considered as fundamental to the function of libraries as it is to that of publishers. Librarians have, quite natu- rally, resisted overzealous restrictions on use. This resistance has been disorgan- ized, inconsistent, and sometimes timid, but its most glaring weakness is the failure to develop a fully coherent and (") ~ ~ systematic interpretation of copyright as a law of users' rights. If producers' inter- ests are to be prevented from controlling access to information even more tightly in the future, librarians and others con- cerned for the promotion of learning and the public right to information must work to promote a more balanced view of copy- right, one that recognizes the legitimate interests and legal rights of users. Patterson and Lindberg's The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users' Rights is a most timely and useful work that provides a legal and historical interpretation sup- porting many of the views of copyright held by librarians. Patterson is Pope Brock Professor of Law at the University of Geor- gia, where Lindberg is Professor of English and editor of the Georgia Review. An earlier work by Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective, was cited six times in a recent opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Although Patterson and Lindberg's opin- ions are certain to be controversial, they unquestionably present an informed chal- lenge to prevailing perceptions of copy- right that merits attention from legislators, judges, and copyright lawyers. Although The Nature of Copyright is a work of legal scholarship, it is fully ac- cessible to the layperson. It is not an in-depth treatment of case precedent nor a manual of copyright law, but an explana- tion of the underlying constitutional premises of copyright. It presents with sound scholarship and argument a per- suasive case that copyright exists princi- pally for the benefit of the public. Patterson and Lindberg's provocative perspective simultaneously preserves the integrity of copyright law and inter- prets it in a way that insures the free flow of information. It provides, according to Robert W. Kastenmeir in his foreword, a 361 ( ! 362 College & Research Libraries necessary "framework of fundamentals to serve as a basis both for drafting and for interpreting copyright legislation." Patterson and Lindberg's concern is for the "correct premises" or underlying principles of copyright, not with copy- right rules emanating from litigation. Central to their case is the assertion that copyright is not a "natural property right" of the author by reason of creation but a "statutory grant of a limited monopoly'' by reason of legislation. They feel that the 1976 Copyright Act clearly expresses the intent of Congress to establish copyright on the statutory-grant theory, but that copyright owners and the courts have continued to view copyright as a prop- erty right rather than a limited monopoly. A second principle of Patterson and Lind- berg's position is that the copyright of a work is distinct and separate from the work itself, a principle underlying the critical distinction between competitors and consumers. Much of The Nature of Copyright explores the implications of these two basic principles for practical copyright problems, including the scope of the right to copy under fair use. It is through this analysis that a law of users' rights emerges, an idea that is highly un- usual if not unique among legal scholars. In general, Patterson and Lindberg ad- vocate the interpretation of copyright in light of the Copyright Clause of the Con- stitution and existing copyright statutes, including the legislative intent of the 1976 Act. They contend that excessive reliance on case precedent often substi- tutes for analysis and reason, and that narrow rulings resulting from the adju- dication of fact-bound controversies constitute a poor basis for applying the law in a changing social and technologi- cal context. Perhaps the most critical point made in this work for librarians is that copyright law deals, in essence, with the control of information and knowl- edge. In facing future challenges result- ing from the development of technology, copyright law must be continually inter- preted in the light of basic principles as embodied in the Copyright Clause. The Nature of Copyright is highly recom- mended to librarians. Along with another July 1992 excellent recent work, Kenneth Crews' 1990 UCLA dissertation Copyright Polides at American Universities: Balancing Informa- tion Needs and Legal Limits, it should be brought to the attention of legal counsel and academic administrators in our insti- tutions.-Joe A. Hewitt, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Com- puter, Hypertext, and the History of Writ- ing. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991. 258p. $45 (ISBN 0-8058- 0427 -7); paper, $22.50 (0-8058-028-5); supplementary 3.5" Macintosh diskette, $8.95 (ISBN 1-56321-067 -3). LC 90-46380. Jay David Bolter is a classicist who has written extensively on the cultural im- plications of technology, notably in his 1984 work, Turing's Man. His new work pulls together research on the history of writing and printing, on contemporary lit- erary theory, and on information theory to examine "the late age of print'' and make some guesses about what will follow it. As his title suggests, Bolter is pri- marily interested in the technology of writing, the way in which the tools, par- ticularly the writing surface, influence the author and the reader. The papyrus roll forced the author and the reader to move in a linear fashion through the text as the scroll was unrolled. The paged book, or codex, allowed browsing and introduced the page as an aesthetic unit and as a unit of information. The printed book further refined the concept of the page as a unit and added such devices as tables of contents and indexes to enable nonlinear access to the text. The marginal gloss in a codex or the note in a book interrupts the linear struc- ture of the text, but remains subordinate to it. The reader turns to it briefly and then returns to following the plot or ar- gument. Bolter contends that hypertext frees the text from this hierarchy and can blur the distinctions between author, text, and reader. A gloss may be subordi- nate to the main argument, or it may lead to other arguments that the reader fol- lows in preference to the main argument. Since the electronic text is not confined to a specific printed format, the reader