David Bellos

Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Not only books but wallpaper, computer programs and cuddly toys are now deemed to be intellectual properties—making copyright a labyrinthine construction...

‘Fascinating’ Telegraph ‘Thorough and engaging’ Washington Post ‘Lively, opinionated, and ultra-timely’ New Yorker ‘[A] robust and readable polemic history’ Financial Times ‘A fascinating new look at the patchwork chaos called copyright ... Not just authors, but artists in many media, scientists, mathematicians and every one of us with our own unique individual faces ... should read this book’ Spectator This...