• ISBN13: 9781780326405
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: General Books
• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publisher Imprint: Zed Books
• Publication Date: January 1, 2013
• Pages: 304
• Original Price: GBP 21.99
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 409 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Economics / General, Intellectual Property / Copyright, and Sociology / General

How can we protect the Internet and our right to free speech, when government strings are being pulled by corporate lobbyists with large legal teams and entertainment budgets? A Copyright Masquerade reveals how proposals for Internet copyright enforcement stem from an American corporate agenda linking intellectual property to trade policy. It is an agenda that involves private industry asking government to block the Internet to protect commercial interests. Taking international and European examples - from the Wikileaks saga to the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) protests to Britain's Digital Economy Act - Horton peels back the paper on the political process to reveal the repeated pattern of governments trying to hide what they are doing and to fast-track the new copyright measures, precluding democratic debate. She also shows how, supported by a global system of policy surveillance, lobbyists for the entertainment industries are able to be sufficiently convincing that governments often don't even bother to question their rationale. An essential and eye-opening expos of the threat to online democracy in the digital era.

Dr Monica Horten is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She writes the influential IPtegrity blog on European Internet and copyright policy (www.iptegrity.com), attracting an international readership including academics, lawyers and policy-makers. She has a long track record as a writer on telecommunications and Internet matters and has written for the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. Her extensive portfolio includes articles on telecoms and mobile phone markets and on the Internet. Dr Horten researched her PhD at the University of Westminster from 2007 to 2010. She holds a masters degree with distinction in communications policy, a postgraduate diploma in marketing, and a bachelor of arts from the Australian National University.
Dr Monica Horten is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She writes the influential IPtegrity blog on European Internet and copyright policy (www.iptegrity.com), attracting an international readership including academics, lawyers and policy-makers. She has a long track record as a writer on telecommunications and Internet matters and has written for the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. Her extensive portfolio includes articles on telecoms and mobile phone markets and on the Internet. Dr Horten researched her PhD at the University of Westminster from 2007 to 2010. She holds a masters degree with distinction in communications policy, a postgraduate diploma in marketing, and a bachelor of arts from the Australian National University.