Dead hands keep a closed book

Dead hands keep a closed book: Scholars must challenge the copyright laws, which allow estates to stifle efforts to generate new ideas about an author’s works, argues Alistair McCleery. Alistair McCleery is director of the Scottish Centre for the Book, Napier University. This is an abridged version of a plenary lecture given at the Making Books, Shaping Readers conference at University College Cork in April.