Hart Publishing Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship

Review This is a well-researched book, providing arguments from both theoretical and empirical perspectives … the book’s approach to copyright and authorship generally, would appeal to all copyright professionals and particularly to theatre practitioners and scholars. The book is unreservedly recommended. -- Karnika Bansal, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia ― European Intellectual Property ReviewThis book will appeal to readers interested in copyright and theatre specifically, but also those with interests in copyright, creativity and joint-authorship. -- Hayleigh Bosher ― The IPKatThis book has the potential to do something: to provoke change. Perhaps its greatest strength is in putting lawyers, practitioners, and scholars in conversation with each other. -- Jane Wessel ― The New Rambler Product Description Based on empirical research, this innovative book explores issues of performativity and authorship in the theatre world under copyright law and addresses several inter-connected questions: who is the author and first owner of a dramatic work? Who gets the credit and the licensing rights? What rights do the performers of the work have? Given the nature of theatre as a medium reliant on the re-use of prior existing works, tropes, themes and plots, what happens if an allegation of copyright infringement is made against a playwright? Furthermore, who possesses moral rights over the work? To evaluate these questions in the context of theatre, the first part of the book examines the history of the dramatic work both as text and as performative work. The second part explores the notions of authorship and joint authorship under copyright law as they apply to the actual process of creating plays, referring to legal and theatrical literature, as well as empirical research. The third part looks at the notion of copyright infringement in the context of theatre, noting that cases of alleged theatrical infringement reach the courts comparatively rarely in comparison with music cases, and assessing the reasons for this with respect to empirical research. The fourth part examines the way moral rights of attribution and integrity work in the context of theatre. The book concludes with a prescriptive comment on how law should respond to the challenges provided by the theatrical context, and how theatre should respond to law. Very original and innovative, this book proposes a ground-breaking empirical approach to study the implications of copyright law in society and makes a wonderful case for the need to consider the reciprocal influence between law and practice. About the Author Luke McDonagh is Assistant Professor at the Law Department at the London School of Economics (LSE) where he undertakes research in the areas of Intellectual Property Law and Constitutional Law. Prior to this he was a Senior Lecturer at The City Law School at City, University of London (2015-2020) and a Lecturer in the Law School at Cardiff University from 2013-2015. Luke holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London (2011), an LL.M from the London School of Economics (LSE) (2006-7) and a B.C.L. degree from NUI, Galway (2002-05).Luke has held a range of visiting scholar positions at institutions abroad including at Waseda University Law School, Tokyo, Japan (2014-15); Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy (2016-17); Keio University Law School, Tokyo, Japan (2017-18); Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan (2018-19); Shanghai International College of Intellectual Property, Tongji University, Shanghai, China (2019-20). He has successfully completed funded research projects for the UK Intellectual Property Office, EU Horizon2020 and the UK Global Challenges Research Fund.