“The Crime of the (20th) Century": Public lecture by copyright expert James Boyle

James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, will give a free, public lecture on the public domain, its erosion by copyright, and the controversial Google Books project at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in Gerrard Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill.

His talk is entitled “The Crime of the (20th) Century: How we threw away our cultural heritage for no good reason (and whether Google Books will bring it back).” A reception in Gerrard Hall will precede the talk at 5 p.m.

Boyle is the author of numerous books and articles about intellectual property and copyright law, and the way they shape our culture. His most recent book is “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind,” and he is working on a comic book to communicate its major points to a broader audience.

Boyle is a founder of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain and of the Creative Commons licensing project.

His lecture is sponsored by the UNC and Carolinas chapters of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, and ibiblio.org. It is free and open to the public.

For more information, please visit http://ils.unc.edu/asist/boyle.html and http://www.james-boyle.com.