Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has released "BOUND BY LAW?" - a comic book on copyright and creativity -- specifically, documentary film.

It is being published on March 15, 2006, under a Creative Commons License.  The comic, by Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins explores the benefits of copyright in a digital age, but also the threats to cultural history posed by a “permissions culture,” and the erosion of “fair use” and the public domain.

"Wonderful, funny… clever. I keep a copy in my desk."

-Davis Guggenheim, Oscar-winning director of the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"

"An indispensable guide for the perplexed…"

-Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book artist

A documentary is being filmed. A cell phone rings, playing the “Rocky” theme song. The filmmaker is told she must pay $10,000 to clear the rights to the song. Can this be true? “Eyes on the Prize,” the great civil rights documentary, was pulled from circulation because the filmmakers’ rights to music and footage had expired. What’s going on here? It’s the collision of documentary filmmaking and intellectual property law, and it’s the inspiration for this new comic book. Follow its heroine Akiko as she films her documentary, and navigates the twists and turns of intellectual property. Why do we have copyrights? What’s “fair use”? Bound By Law reaches beyond documentary film to provide a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture.

Download Bound By Law? Tales from the Public Domain

The entire comic in one downloadable file. Pdf format, 16mb, 77pages.

Visit Bound By Law? Official Website

This graphic-novel-format paperback is an excellent introduction to copyright law. The authors, all law professors, wanted to make copyright accessible for everyone in a form other than a law-review article. The "plot" revolves around Akiko, a filmmaker who wants to capture a day in the life of New York City. As Akiko tries to produce her film, she learns about copyright basics, including fair use, public domain, and the impact of digital technology. She also learns about the rise of the "rights culture," that is, a culture that demands a person obtain the rights to use copyrighted materials even for incidental uses for which rights were not required in the past. We leave Akiko musing over a "cultural environmental movement" that would counter the rights culture. The book, published under a Creative Commons License, which clearly spells out the rights granted to readers, is also available to be read or downloaded for free at http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics. This is a fantastic approach for introducing students to copyright law, even at the middle-school level, and a must for professional development. Esther Sinofsky (Amazon.com: )

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