Attention: Dear Fellow Creative Workers and Writers, YOU MUST READ THIS!

To Copy or Not To Copy, That’s Not The Question…

I’ve been squished by the schedule of my translation projects. (How fool to accept more than you can chew! And now you’re complaining?!...Duh!) As the impact, in the last couple of days I’ve been slacking in doing “proper blogging”, I mean really participate on the blogs I visit when doing my EC drops. So, to make amends, and since I think you guys, as well as most bloggers, are creative workers or writers (you do write when you post articles, right?), I will give this (legal) download link of a very fascinating book (one of which I’ve been translating): In Praise of Copying. 

In Praise of Copying is a book by Marcus Boon that is published and made available for free downloads by Harvard University Press. This is a perspective-changing book, or at least has the potentials to become one, especially in this digital and internet era where information, products, and services flow so freely and “copyright” is a major issue.

From what I’ve read, the point tried to make by this book is not a justification or an accusation for the act of copying, but an understanding of what copying really means to us as human beings. And although most of the case studies deal with arts, this book could be (if not is) a relevant reference not only for artists but also for every person deals with creative works and the term “copyright”; which also includes musicians, software programmers, photographers, and off course, authors or writers. 

However, I’m not finish digesting In Praise of Copying yet and have “truly” read only the previous chapters until now. So, I won’t give any misleading acting-smart reviews or something. Instead, I will include the introduction to the book by Harvard University Press. Read it and if you’re interested enough, visit their site to get a copy of the book yourself. (The link is available below this introduction.)

"This book is devoted to a deceptively simple but original argument: that copying is an essential part of being human, that the ability to copy is worthy of celebration, and that, without recognizing how integral copying is to being human, we cannot understand ourselves or the world we live in. 

In spite of the laws, stigmas, and anxieties attached to it, the word “copying” permeates contemporary culture, shaping discourse on issues from hip hop to digitization to gender reassignment, and is particularly crucial in legal debates concerning intellectual property and copyright. Yet as a philosophical concept, copying remains poorly understood. Working comparatively across cultures and times, Marcus Boon undertakes an examination of what this word means—historically, culturally, philosophically—and why it fills us with fear and fascination. He argues that the dominant legal-political structures that define copying today obscure much broader processes of imitation that have constituted human communities for ages and continue to shape various subcultures today. Drawing on contemporary art, music and film, the history of aesthetics, critical theory, and Buddhist philosophy and practice, In Praise of Copying seeks to show how and why copying works, what the sources of its power are, and the political stakes of renegotiating the way we value copying in the age of globalization."

GO AHEAD, TAKE A COPY.

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