Reviewed by:

• Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship by Luke McDonagh, and: Owning Performance | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage by Jane Wessel, and: Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770–1911 by Derek Miller, and: Negotiating Copyright in the American Theatre: 1856–1951 by Brent Salter
• Elena Cooper

What is the relationship between copyright law and the theatre, both today and historically? How does law influence the theatre and how does the theatre shape the law? Until recently, there was relatively little in-depth and longitudinal literature addressing these questions (an exception being Anthea Kraut's Choreographing Copyright [2015], about nineteenth-century dance and US copyright). Copyright scholarship saw a historical turn in the late 1990s, following the publication of the now seminal The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law by Brad Sherman and Lionel Bently (1999). Copyright history soon became a burgeoning interdisciplinary field drawing together scholars from law and the humanities, primarily literature and book history; the focus was long on the history of laws protecting books and literary works as the first subject matter protected by copyright. It was only in 2018 that the first monograph-length studies of copyright protecting the visual arts were published (Elena Cooper's Art and Modern Copyright and Katie Scott's Becoming Property), which illustrated that a shift in focus to new subject matter—the visual arts—could provide new and distinct perspectives on copyright history. Such scholarship also implicitly highlighted the continued absence of scholarship in theatre. What new perspectives might be gleaned from a history of dramatic copyright and theatre centered on the value of ephemeral performance?

In view of these long-standing gaps in the scholarship on theatre and copyright, the significance of four recently published monographs cannot be stressed enough. These studies by legal scholar Luke McDonagh, humanities scholars Derek Miller and Jane Wessel, and Brent Salter, a scholar with both legal and humanities training, offer specific insights into the relationship between law and theatre across different periods, from the sixteenth century to present day. Their works also demonstrate, through their originality and broad range of source material and methods, the scholarly value of interdisciplinary perspectives on theatre.

McDonagh's Performing Copyright focuses on copyright and theatre in the UK today, although it also includes a historical chapter and comparative legal analysis, including comparisons with US law. Wessel's Owning Performance | Performing Ownership concerns copyright and the theatre in Britain in the long eighteenth century, from the reopening of theatres in 1660 to the introduction of statutory performance rights in the UK by the 1833 Dramatic Literary Property Act. Miller's Copyright and the Value of Performance uncovers the history of copyright and the theatre in both Britain and the US, from the Restoration until the statutory codification of copyright at the beginning of the twentieth century. Finally, Salter's Negotiating Copyright concerns US theatre and the law, including but not limited to copyright law, from the advent of US statutory performance rights in 1856 to the mid-twentieth century. Taken together, these studies cover a longitudinal period [End Page 408] of four hundred years during which there were significant legal changes. What insights into the dynamics of the legal regulation of the theatre can we gain by reading these studies together?

In Elizabethan Britain, as McDonagh indicates, theatre was characterized by "collaborative theatricality": the "polyvocal" contributions of playwrights, actors, musicians, costumers, prompters (who altered the script), and managers (23, 30); there was no assumption that the playwright occupied a privileged position in this process. With regard to legal rights, the playwright owned the manuscript—as a unique copy—which an acting company could purchase for a flat fee (between £6-10) and that payment...

 校订者：

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  表演版权：法律、戏剧和作者 卢克·麦克唐纳 （Luke McDonagh） 和：拥有表演 |表演所有权：简·韦塞尔 （Jane Wessel） 的《文学财产和十八世纪英国舞台》（Performing Ownership： Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage），以及德里克·米勒 （Derek Miller） 的《版权和表演的价值，1770-1911 年》（Derek Miller） 和：《美国剧院的版权谈判：1856-1951 年》（Intergotiating Copyright in the American Theatre： 1856-1951） 布伦特·索尔特 （Brent Salter） 著
•  埃琳娜·库珀

版权法与剧院之间在今天和历史上是什么关系？法律如何影响剧院，剧院又如何塑造法律？直到最近，解决这些问题的深入和纵向文献相对较少（安西娅·克劳特 （Anthea Kraut） 的《编舞版权》（2015 年）是一个例外，关于十九世纪舞蹈和美国版权）。1990 年代后期，随着布拉德·谢尔曼 （Brad Sherman） 和莱昂内尔·本特利 （Lionel Bently） 的开创性著作《现代知识产权法的形成》（1999 年）的出版，版权学术出现了历史性转折。版权史很快成为一个新兴的跨学科领域，汇集了法律和人文学科的学者，主要是文学和书籍史;长期以来，重点一直放在保护书籍和文学作品作为受版权保护的第一个主题的法律历史上。直到 2018 年，第一篇关于视觉艺术版权保护的专著研究才出版（Elena Cooper 的《艺术与现代版权》和 Katie Scott 的《成为财产》），这表明将重点转移到新主题——视觉艺术——可以为版权历史提供新的和独特的视角。这样的学术研究也隐含地突出了戏剧中学术研究的持续缺失。从以短暂表演的价值为中心的戏剧版权和戏剧的历史中可以收集到哪些新的视角？

鉴于戏剧和版权学术研究中存在的这些长期空白，最近出版的四本专著的重要性怎么强调都不为过。这些由法律学者卢克·麦克唐纳 （Luke McDonagh）、人文学者德里克·米勒 （Derek Miller） 和简·韦塞尔 （Jane Wessel） 以及具有法律和人文学科培训的学者布伦特·索尔特 （Brent Salter） 进行的研究，为从 16 世纪到现在不同时期法律与戏剧之间的关系提供了具体见解。他们的作品还通过其独创性和广泛的原始材料和方法展示了跨学科戏剧视角的学术价值。

麦克唐纳的《表演版权》侧重于当今英国的版权和戏剧，尽管它也包括一个历史章节和比较法律分析，包括与美国法律的比较。Wessel's Owning 性能 |表演所有权涉及漫长的 18 世纪英国的版权和剧院，从 1660 年剧院重新开放到 1833 年《戏剧文学财产法》在英国引入法定表演权。米勒的《版权和表演的价值》揭示了英国和美国的版权和剧院的历史。 从复辟到 20 世纪初版权的法定编纂。最后，索尔特的《版权谈判》涉及从 1856 年美国法定表演权出现到 20 世纪中叶的美国戏剧和法律，包括但不限于版权法。综上所述，这些研究涵盖了 400 年的纵向时期 [结束第 408 页] ，在此期间发生了重大的法律变化。通过一起阅读这些研究，我们可以对剧院法律监管的动态获得哪些见解？

正如麦克唐纳所指出的，在伊丽莎白时代的英国，戏剧的特点是“协作戏剧性”：剧作家、演员、音乐家、服装师、提词人（修改剧本的人）和经理的“多声部”贡献（23,30）;没有人假设剧作家在这个过程中占据了特权地位。在合法权利方面，剧作家拥有手稿——作为独特的副本——表演公司可以以固定费用（6-10 英镑）购买，然后支付这笔费用......