Megan Richardson is a Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law, an Associate Director of Law at the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia and a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne. Julian Thomas is Director of the Swinburne Institute for Social Research and Professor of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.

• Part I. The Journalism Age: 1. Grub Street biographers; 2. Author-journalists; 3. Agitators and dissenters; 4. End of the property right; Part II. The Exhibition-Effect: 5. Patent inadequacies; 6. Exhibition fever; 7. Lessons and compromises; 8. Rise of advertising; Part III. The Author-Brand Continuum: 9. Rethinking 'romantic' authorship; 10. The artist in an age of mechanical reproduction; 11. From fashion to brand; 12. Closing the categories; Epilogue; Appendices.

'It is fascinating to learn how IP law came about, by demonstrating the socio-legal aspects of UK common law and emerging legislation, later adopted in the United States and other common law countries … The book is packed with helpful and detailed footnotes, case citations and historical documents - demonstrating that Richardson and Thomas must have experienced great academic pleasure when trawling through archived material not necessarily available online. … The book makes fascinating reading, useful for IP law lecturers and practitioners in this field in that one gains detailed knowledge about the background and ever evolving law of intellectual property set within a well-researched historical context of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries.' Entertainment Law Review