Right now, with only about four weeks of summer remaining, you're probably trying to decide what book or books to pack for your beach vacation or trip to the mountains - or just to curl up with on a rainy August day.
Be honest. Do you really want to lose yourself in another James Patterson book (
The President Is Missing) - even if Bill Clinton is
listed as the co-author? Or even if Bill Clinton really
is the co-author! Or Daniel Silva's latest? Or Danielle Steele's? To stick with the DS theme.
Do you really?
Or would you really prefer to get a little (well, maybe more than a little) wonky this August? And impress those sharing your beach blanket or sitting across from you at the airport. Remember this: P.J. O'Rourke, the humorist, once said: "Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
Well, assuming you are now ready to forsake Patterson (okay, with Clinton), Silva, and Steele, for some gripping wonky reading, here are my choices.
* * *
Want a guide for the principles that should guide the inevitable update of the Communications Act? This book, comprised of a series of "White Papers" submitted to the House Commerce Committee in connection with its #CommActUpdate process, prescribes specific reforms for areas such as broadband policy and Internet oversight, competition policy, spectrum management, universal service, video services regulation, and more. The book contains an up-to-date, comprehensive introduction co-authored by me and FSF Senior Fellow Seth Cooper. Contributors to the papers include the following members of FSF's Board of Academic Advisors: Michelle Connolly, Richard Epstein, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Daniel Lyons, Bruce Owen, Richard Pierce, Glen Robinson, James Speta, and Christopher Yoo.
The book is available from Amazon
here in paperback or for your Kindle. And it is available
here from other booksellers in various e-book formats.
* * *
Protection of Intellectual Property (IP) rights is indispensable to maintaining a vibrant economy, especially in the digital age as creativity and innovation increasingly take intangible forms. Long before the digital age, however, the U.S. Constitution secured the IP rights of authors and inventors to the fruits of their labors. The essays in this book, co-authored by me and FSF Senior Fellow Seth Cooper, explore the foundational underpinnings of intellectual property that informed the Constitution of 1787. The book explains how these concepts informed the further development of IP rights from the First Congress through Reconstruction. The essays address the contributions of figures such as John Locke, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln to the development of Intellectual Property rights within the context of American constitutionalism.
The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property
is available from Amazon
here
and from Carolina Academic Press
here
. [Note to professors: This book, with its emphasis on the natural rights justification for securing the rights of authors and inventors, and its combination of philosophical, jurisprudential, and historical materials, makes an excellent supplement to the usual course materials.]
* * *
And, finally, if you want to see what Free State Foundation scholars were saying back in 2012 about the direction in which communications policy should go, you can turn to
Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age, available from Amazon
here or from Carolina Academic Press
here.
* * *
And remember this too: Erasmus of Rotterdam said: "When I get a little money I buy books; if any is left over, I buy food or clothes." It's easy to imagine this most notable Dutch classical scholar, if he were living today, saying: "When I get a little money, I buy Free State Foundation books...." Well, you get the drift.
Happy Summer Reading!
