FROM UNDERGROUND CARTOONIST TO LAW PROFESSOR AND BACK AGAIN . . . In a profile in an Oregon newspaper, University of Oregon law professor Keith Aoki said that illustrating the graphic novel Bound by Law? allowed him to return to his first love, comics.*

Bound by Law? tells a story about copyright law through the eyes of its hero, Akiko, a filmmaker whose attempts to make a movie about New York is threatened by problems with copyright and trademark law. According to a review at Blogcritics, Bound by Law? "seeks to explain to the layperson two of the thornier issues in modern US copyright law for writers, musicians, artists, and filmmakers." Those issues are public domain and fair use.

Bound by Law? was published by Duke Law's Center for the Study of Public Domain and was written by two other law professors, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins. Keith Aoki was the illustrator. He plans at least two other graphic novels with his collaborators, one about musicians and the other about the re-mix/mash-up phenomenon.

Aoki's story is interesting because he took up law school only after "years of living the starving artist lifestyle," according to the profile in the Oregon newspaper. After deciding "it was time for a real career," he got into Harvard Law, "but wasn't sure what to do there until he found something that resonated with his artistic side." This turned out to be copyright law.

Now at age 50, Aoki teaches copyright and intellectual property at the University of Oregon School of Law, where he's been since 1993.

At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow wrote that Bound by Law? "brilliantly explains how copyright -- which is supposed to promote creativity -- can get in the way of creation." In the post, Doctorow provided a link for free downloads of the graphic novel. TaxProfBlog and PrawfsBlawg have also posted about it.

Aoki summed up the project in a quote that would resonate with many law-professor bloggers: "We could have written a dry, boring legal article. But we wanted to try to do something in a form that would reach other types of people."

With this in mind, it's interesting to note that despite the good reviews, none of the law-school profiles for Aoki, Boyle or Jenkins mention Bound by Law?, at least as far as I can tell.

*Free registration might be required to read the profile. If someone can find the profile republished somewhere that doesn't require registration, please send me an email and I'll change the link.

Comments

[Tim]

Speaking from a lay perspective, I found it to be informative and more entertaining than I thought it would be.

Copyright is, in the minds of most of my colleagues in the tech sector, largely the topic of a shouting match between DRM advocates and "information wants to be FREE!" people. Your colleagues, of course, may vary.

I'd recommend it for a lay audience.