Everyone Breaks These Laws

Gerardo Con Díaz is professor of science and technology studies at the University of California, Davis, and an editor of Studies in Computing and Culture, a book series on the social studies of digital technology. He is the author of the prize-winning book Software Rights.

“A brilliant encore to his Software Rights, Con Díaz’s Everyone Breaks These Laws skillfully analyzes copyright law and online culture. Exploring privacy, property, and power, it is an essential historical scaffolding informing new challenges with copyright and AI.”— Jeffrey R. Yost, author of Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry“Everyone Breaks These Laws is an exciting, innovative, and sorely needed book examining the role of copyright in shaping internet culture. Con Díaz argues convincingly that a deep engagement with copyright is essential to understanding the internet’s past development, present condition, and potential futures.”—Kevin Driscoll, author of The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media“Everyone Breaks These Laws is a triumph of form and substance. By tracking a series of copyright lawsuits, the book shows how the internet’s history has shaped what we experience online, from the age of person-to-person file-sharing to Google image-search to our current AI image-tools. Yet it reads like a pal explaining things to you in a way that is on the level yet lively. Con Díaz trusts his readers to come to their own conclusions about the proper balance between creativity and ownership.”—Ken Alder, author of The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World