Copyright law was once an esoteric backwater, the special province of professional authors, publishers, and entertainment companies, but it now impacts everyone who uses the Internet or consumes cultural expression on a computer, mobile phone, or personal tablet. Copyright has come to be immensely controversial as well. For instance, the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), copyright-industry backed legislation met its defeat at the hands of a popular outcry spearheaded by Google, Wikipedia, and other online aggregators of content and information. SOPA and other such initiatives would target the massive online piracy that threatens the economic viability of newspapers, movie studios, record labels, and book publishers. But the copyright industries' arguably heavy-handed response threatens to chill the free-wheeling wellspring of online creativity, expression, and ready access to information upon which we have all come to rely. To navigate the shoals of these opposing, equally dim prospects is a complex undertaking. No less daunting, even for the educated layperson, is to understand the legal framework, policy arguments, industry economics, legislative proposals, and judicial decisions that fuel the copyright debate.

In Copyright: What Everyone Needs to Know®, law professor Neil Netanel guides readers through the murky dynamics of modern copyright law, answering questions about topics such as the new challenges posed by the digital environment, copyright and piracy in the global marketplace, and proposals for future reform. From the basis and purpose of copyright law to a glimpse at what the law could - or should - become in the digital age, Netanel offers the necessary tools for following the debates that have raged everywhere from internet forums to the halls of Congress.