“Most books about copyright are academic analyses or rants—or both. Not this one. David Newhoff’s Who Invented Oscar Wilde? is full of fascinating reporting and clear analysis that adds up to a compelling and well-researched story. It’s amusing, important, and a great read.”—Robert Levine, author of Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back
“David Newhoff is one of our clearest-thinking and most knowledgeable observers of twenty-first-century American culture and the destructive copyright wars waged by digital utopians.”—T Bone Burnett, musician, songwriter, and record producer
“Copyright law, cool? David Newhoff eloquently makes the case for it being at least ‘cool adjacent’ in Who Invented Oscar Wilde?, his entertaining, witty new book about the complex history of a law rooted in the constitution and vital to the survival of artists, our culture, and, as he shows, our democracy itself. This is an important book that everyone who cares about the survival of artists and the arts should read.”—Doug Menuez, photographer, director, and author of the best-seller Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley, 1985–2000
“No one engages the intellect on copyright dialectic with the elocutionary prose of a Brahmin-like David Newhoff. He is a copyright mandarin. Press pause on sophistry. You are going to enjoy this Wilde ride.”—Michelle Shocked, picker-poet, singer-songwriter, and artists’ rights activist
“David Newhoff does more than provide a refreshing and original history of copyright. He goes to the dark heart of digital culture’s disregard for human creativity and ingenuity.”—Andrew Orlowski, journalist and founder of the research network Think of X
“David Newhoff is one of the sharpest and most nuanced thinkers about the role of artists’ rights in the digital age.”—East Bay Ray, guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the Dead Kennedys
“What do Mickey Mouse, Andy Warhol, Prince, Annie Leibovitz, and Oscar Wilde have in common? They are all characters in the story of American copyright. David Newhoff cleverly dissects the history (and challenges) of individual expression and authorship—from the time of cave paintings to the digital age. For those who create original work and want to understand the confusing concepts of copyright protection, Newhoff’s book will appeal.”—John Kitsch, photographer
