Who Owns This Sentence?: How Copyright Became the World’s Greatest Money Machine

An important exploration into how copyright has become a tool of unprecedented power and wealth for the few, widening the gap between the richest and poorest in society.

Copyright is everywhere. It controls much of what we do in the modern world, including the films we watch, the books we read, the music we listen to, the video games we play and the apps we use on our mobile telephones. Copyright goes beyond content created by the living. Today, legal battles are being fought over who owns the permissions (and thereby earns the profit) in the output of artificial intelligence programs.

What began as a means of regulating the trade in books, has developed into a legal and linguistic labyrinth that has given financial and cultural ownership to an increasingly smaller group of larger corporations. Who Owns This Sentence? looks at how throughout history, principled arguments, greed, and opportunism have ensured copyright’s ascendency, and unveils those who are behind a phenomenon that has faced little public debate.