Gadzooks!

Geared for students and teachers, a new publication explains the nuances of copyright law and fair use—in comic-book form.

A project of the Duke University Law School, Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law? chronicles the adventures of filmmaker Akiko and her tussles with the Rights Monster as she makes a documentary, navigating the treacherous and often confusing world of fair use along the way.

Writers Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and James Boyle, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, along with artist Keith Aoki, the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at the University of Oregon School of Law, spent two years conceiving, researching, and then collaborating on the book. “It’s extremely hard for verbose people to convey ideas into bubbles,” Jenkins says. “But it made for a better work. To be that concise.”

In the true spirit of its subject, the 72-page comic is free to download off the Web (www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics) and can be remixed, cut up, and translated into different languages. But to reach as many teachers and students as possible, a bound print copy from Duke University Press featuring a foreword from Davis Guggenheim, director of the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth and an introduction by Cory Doctorow is set for publication in September for $8.95 a copy.

With more than 160,000 downloads so far, Jenkins says the team is already working on a new comic book—this one focused on music and copyright law. “Comics are kind of perfect for this,” she says. “They capture a visual craziness and also engage in the fair use we talk about.”