Bill Patry, who eats, breathes, and lives copyright, has just published a new seven-volume copyright treatise; I haven’t yet had a chance to read through the sample chapters I’ve been sent, but I expect the work to be superb, and Roger Parloff (Senior Legal Editor at Fortune) agrees. Here’s an excerpt from Parloff’s Jan. 23 review (which also calls the treatise “amazing”):
Patry is currently senior copyright counsel at Google, and in previous lives has served as a full-time professor at Cardozo Law School (5 years), copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives (3.5 years), Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights (4.5 years), and as a copyright litigator in private practice (12 years). (He also writes The Patry Copyright Blog, whose items I rip off from time to time.)
What’s new about this treatise? Is it a wiki? No, thank God. Just the opposite, really. It’s a 7-volume, 5,830-page treatise (available here from Thomson/West for the low low price of $1,498) that was–incredibly–written entirely by Patry….
The treatise comes with its own blog, which will include notes from Patry and comments posted by readers. (Patry is also the author of The Patry Copyright Blog.) The work sounds like a tremendous addition to the field (and I say this as someone who is a fan of the Nimmer Copyright treatise, too).