Politics in Publishing

Non-Western perspective on the international history of intellectual property rights

Politics in Publishing focuses on Japan's involvement in shaping international copyright law over a seventy-year period following the country's 1899 accession to the Berne Convention, the first multilateral copyright treaty. During this time, Japanese state officials collaborated with various stakeholders such as publishers, translators, and legal experts to strategically influence the international revision process of the treaty. The involvement of these actors in international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations affected global copyright norms even as Japan advanced its imperial – national after 1945 – and capitalist interests.

Taking a previously lacking non-Western perspective on the history of international copyright law, Politics in Publishing highlights the complex interplay between state and private actors and between domestic and international power relations, as well as administrative transformations in the formation of the modern, global international order. Grounded in an impressive body of primary source material, this book will make a substantial contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship on intellectual property, and copyright history in particular.

Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

"Politics in Publishing" was written by Maj Hartmann.

Maj Hartmann is a postdoctoral researcher in political history in the Japanese Studies Research Group of the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts.

Yes, "Politics in Publishing" is published Open Access. It is available under a BY-NC-ND license.

Publication of "Politics in Publishing" was funded by KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTE ON JAPANESE NAMES AND TRANSLATION
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION. POLITICS IN PUBLISHING

CHAPTER 1. BEFORE BERNE: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BERNE CONVENTION AND THE OPPOSITION OF JAPAN’S PUBLISHING INDUSTRY
The Development of Copyright Protection in Japan
Japan’s Early Internationalists and the Institutional Foundations for State- Society Cooperation
The Emergence of an Opposition Movement

CHAPTER 2. AN UNPREDICTED DEMAND: JAPANESE PUBLISHERS BETWEEN THE ACCESSION TO THE BERNE CONVENTION AND WORLD WAR I
The Copyright Conference of 1900 and the Double Standard of Japanese Publishers
The 1908 Berlin Revision Conference and Japan’s Proposal for Free Translation Rights
Japanese Publishers and the Berne Convention During World War I

CHAPTER 3. DEFENDING THE EXCEPTION: COPYRIGHT NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE FOUNDING OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE 1928 ROME REVISION CONFERENCE
The League of Nations and New Structures of International Intellectual Cooperation
The Re-emergence of the Copyright Problem
Japan’s National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation
Business-State Cooperation in the Preparations of the 1928 Rome Revision Conference
The 1928 Rome Revision Conference and Japan’s Request for an Exemption from the Translation Right Regulations

CHAPTER 4. EXPANDING GLOBAL VISIBILITY: JAPANESE COPYRIGHT EXPERTS AND THE STATE DURING THE 1930S COPYRIGHT NEGOTIATIONS
Intensifying Cultural Cooperation Versus International Isolation
The Establishment of Copyright Advisory Councils
The Paris Committee of Experts and the Second General Meeting of the National Committees
Preparations of the Brussels Revision Conference and the Second Expert Meeting
Reactions by the Transnational Copyright Community
Outbreak of World War II

CHAPTER 5. TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE: PUBLISHERS, TRANSLATORS, AND UNESCO IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD
The Continuation of International Copyright Negotiations under SCAP and UNESCO
Japan’s Reentry into the Transnational Copyright Community
Post-Occupation Changes and the Universal Copyright Convention
The Return of the Publishers
The 1967 Stockholm Revision Conference and the Promotion of the Publishing Sector in Developing Countries

CONCLUSION
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX