Book Review: u22Die Gemeinfreiheit: Begriff, Funktion, Dogmatik (The Public Domain: Concept, Function, Dogmatics)u22 by Alexander Peukert

摘要

The reviewer considers a recent book by Alexander Peukert, the professor of civil and commercial law who specializes in international intellectual property law at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Peukert has devoted the book to defining the limits of the public domain – the realm of intellectual activity in which works are free for anyone to use because the works are not protected by intellectual property rights, are protected but the protection has expired, are subject to an exception to the rights under the law, or are unprotected because the owner of the rights chooses not to enforce the rights. Although the scope of the public domain has been a topic of lively discussion in the United States, it has received only minimal attention in Germany – hence the book is a welcome contribution to the intellectual property literature. The reviewer presents the book to U.S. readers with charts illustrating various views of the public domain.