What to read first?

People often ask us what to read first on this site.  The answer is “It depends what you’re looking for”. Below we’ve put together a guide to help you quickly find the most popular and most important articles on the site, in various topics. Please let us know (by leaving a comment here, or by contacting us) if you feel there’s an article not listed that should be. We have to pick and choose, of course, but reader input is the most valuable part of that process.

• Economics of art:

  • How To Free Your Work
  • The Cobbler Model
  • Creator-Endorsed Advertising
  • The Creator-Endorsed Mark

• Real-life economic data from an artist who shares unrestrictedly:

  • The Sita Distribution Project
  • Hope for Free Culture

• Policy proposals:

  • The Declared-Value System
  • Going on the Offensive: Abolition or Reform?

• Relationship between art and media:

  • Understanding Free Content

• Historical analysis:

  • The Surprising History of Copyright and the Promise of a Post-Copyright World

• Television interviews:

  • Live on the Brian Lehrer Show (wide-ranging discussion)

• Our “Frequently Asked Questions” page:

  • Frequently Asked Questions

• A thorough critical analysis of the arguments for copyright:

  • What We Lose When We Embrace Copyright

• Shorter articles about the problems caused by copyright restrictions:

  • A Tale of Two Authors: Why Translations Happen, or Don’t
  • Great Ideas Live Forever
  • The Case For the Death of Copyright

• Education:

  • Teaching Music Under Copyright
  • A Classroom Teacher on Copying vs Plagiarism
  • New York University Confuses Sharing with Plagiarism

• How sharing art online helps defeat plagiarism:

  • Filesharing Defeats Plagiarism

• Censorship and Civil Rights:

  • How Copyright Restrictions Suppress Art: In Interview with Artist Nina Paley.
  • An example of copyright being used purely for censorship.
  • More examples of the same.

• A reconceptualization of property:

  • Redefining Property