reviews 578 College & Research Libraries November 1997 Tidcombe begins with a broad histori- cal introduction, citing women engaged in the field as early as the fifteenth-cen- tury. She then describes the place of women trade binders at the end of the nineteenth-century, finally discussing more exotic styles of bindings, including embroidered bindings, painted vellum bindings, vellucent bindings, metalwork bindings, as well as fore-edge paintings, among others. She does point out, how- ever, that women were more likely to contribute these external features, rather than be involved in the actual binding. Through introduction to apprentice- ships and trade unions, Tidcombe set the stage for womens increased involve- ment in a profession that was transform- ing rapidly from a trade to an artistic craft, due in part to the Arts and Crafts move- ment. Formerly limited only to men, the profession began to accept women who were trained in art schools, where they learned basic design elements. This text is suitable for both readers new to this discipline and those with bench experience. Tidcombe documents procedures for those not familiar with bench practices, and defines some of the more technical vocabulary. She provides numerous examples of each binders work, apparently having consulted and researched each object personally. The text is supplemented with high- quality illustrations, including thirty-two stunning color plates and more than one hundred black-and-white photographs, which enable the reader to visualize many of the exquisitely tooled bindings described in the text, as well as the deco- rative styles of the period covered. In addition, portraits of many of the women discussed and their workshops, as well as diagrams of some of the meth- odology described, are included. The book is only slightly limited by the authors Eurocentric (or more spe- cifically British) focus on the subject, as it includes a chapter on women binders in America and elsewhere abroad. Appendices I, II, and III contain il- lustrations of the tools used by Prideaux, Adams, and Pye, along with a list of each of the artists bindings. Appendix IV in- cludes a list of women and groups as- sociated with the Guild of Women Bind- ers. The remaining appendices list bind- ings by Elizabeth MacColl, additional women binders not mentioned in this text (both European and American), and a list of women in charge of bookbind- ing shops in Britain between 1648 and 1901 (broken down by region, including London, the rest of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland). The text con- cludes with a selected bibliography, co- pious notes—a testament to how thor- oughly Tidcombe researched the sub- ject—and a detailed index. This is an important addition not only to any collection with strengths in the history of the book or book arts, but also to womens studies collections.—Lois Fischer Black, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York. Bettig, Ronald V. Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Pr. (Critical Studies in Communications and the Cultural Industries), 1996. 276p. $60 cloth (ISBN 0-8133-1385-6); $24.95 alk. paper (ISBN 0-8133-3304-0). LC 96- 9290. Those who control the medium, control the message. Rooted in the political— economic philosophy of Marx and Engels, the assertion is that the ruling capitalist class controls the production and dissemination of information by vir- tue of owning the means of communica- tion. In the 1960s and 1970s, the refrain was adapted to encompass protests about the role of the media in actually shaping ideology and public opinion. Ronald Bettig, assistant professor of communications at Penn State Univer- sity, takes the theory to another level by viewing mass media not as an ideologi- cal machine but, rather, as a powerful Book Reviews 579 economic entity. Copyrighting Culture is a well-written, well-argued, and, ultimately, fascinating study of how intellectual prop- erty law, particularly copyright, has been used as a tool to expand the wealth and power of the information and entertain- ment industry oligarchy. The author identifies several central themes throughout the book. First, tradi- tional concerns about ownership and con- trol of the means of communication (e.g., the television station or newspaper) now are compounded because, through the manipulation of copyright law, moguls have extended their ownership to include content as well as medium. Copyright consequently serves to expand market power because holding a dominant mar- ket share in one sector facilitates entry and success in another. And traditional checks on the formation of monopolies, such as the emergence of new technolo- gies once counted on to restore competi- tion, are being absorbed by the industry giants and are exacerbating the problems of ownership concentration. Following a brief introduction to the concept of the political economy of com- munications, Bettig provides an inter- esting history of the development of copyright. He traces its antecedents through the oral traditions of ancient Greece and Talmudic law, to its birth in the Middle Ages with the invention of the printing press and origins of capi- talism, to its modern manifestation in British and U. S. law. Chapter 3 gets to the heart of Bettig’s argument that copyright “serves as an instrument of wealth that can be utilized in the cycle of capital accumulation to generate more wealth . . . [and] as the basis for expanding market power.” In this chapter, the reader is introduced to the nemesis, the filmed entertainment industry; the chapter explores the struc- ture of the industry and who owns it. In a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in the last quarter century, companies have organized around core and related busi- nesses. The author presents several ex- amples of mergers and acquisitions that have created media and entertainment conglomerates: Parent companies have expanded their empires to include own- ership of film and production companies, movie theaters, broadcasting groups, cable networks, and book and music pub- lishing companies. Bettig writes: “Com- munications scholars . . . agree that a handful—six to ten vertically integrated communications companies—will soon produce, own, and distribute the bulk of culture and information circulating in the global marketplace.” He presents a number of supporting claims that com- munications in the United States are owned by the super rich. Owners or former owners of media and informa- tion corporations constitute approxi- mately 25 percent of those in FORBES’s annual list of the 400 richest people in the United States. The chapter contains a wealth of examples on mergers that have garnered these megacompanies huge shares of the information and en- tertainment market. Chapter 4 looks at the various strate- gies that companies have used to deal with problems of exclusion which are in- herent to broadcasting information and entertainment. In the absence of direct point-of-access sales, such as theater box offices, other strategies are em- ployed. Broadcasters’ sale of audiences to advertisers, although still clearly a profitable option, is increasingly supple- mented by direct consumer sales, such as pay-cable and pay-per-view. In chapters 5 and 6, Bettig presents two fascinating case studies to illustrate his thesis. The emergence of cable tele- vision and the development of VCRs for home use were both originally perceived as threats to the filmed entertainment industry. Important legal battles were waged before these sectors ultimately were incorporated into the industry’s dis- tribution system. “The control of intellec- tual property material, in particular, copy- 580 College & Research Libraries November 1997 rights in television programs and motion pictures, facilitated Hollywood’s capture of new cable and video technology.” Bettig’s arguments are cogent and well supported. He cites media and com- munications theorists and sociologists extensively, in particular Thomas Guback, Graham Murdock, Anthony Giddens, and William Domhoff; a Marx- ist influence is pervasive. The excellent bibliography also includes relevant gov- ernment publications and an extensive examination of popular and trade titles in business, film, and media fields. Although the book includes a chapter examining various “acts of resistance” against the intellectual property system, it is not clear what the alternative would be. But Bettig does succeed in present- ing an excellent case for reexamining the institution of intellectual property law. He argues convincingly that the existing system fails to validate the two basic philosophical justifications for granting intellectual property rights: “first, that these rights encourage production and dissemination of artistic and intellectual creativity through pecuniary rewards to actual creators; and second, that they stimulate dissemination of this work to the benefit of society as a whole.” Why should we be concerned? The author repeats oft-voiced concerns about the impact of market control on the diversity and accessibility of intel- lectual and creative work. “More and more, knowledge and culture are being privately appropriated and submitted to the logic of the marketplace.” Fewer movies are available in more theaters; and these are most often products of major studios. There is increasing con- cern about the availability of informa- tion and entertainment programming to the economically or technologically dis- advantaged. The growth of pay-televi- sion and the shift of programming to pay-per-view or subscription continue to erode entertainment and information options for those who cannot pay. The focus of Bettig’s argument is on the filmed entertainment industry, but the same trends are developing with the Internet. In fact, many of the players are the same. Although doom-and- gloom warnings are unwarranted, there are, indisputably, implications for infor- mation users and providers. Unrelent- ing scrutiny of developments and trends concerning the Internet and other information services is merited, lest monopolistic control, the likes of which Bettig describes for the filmed entertainment industry, prevails.— Janita Jobe, University of Nevada. Doheny-Farina, Stephen. The Wired Neighborhood. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1996. 224p. $25, alk. paper (ISBN 0-300-06765-8). LC 96- 12241. When you move away from a place, you vow to keep up with your friends by letter, telephone, and e-mail. But do you? Eventually, and inevitably, all but the stron- gest friendships eventually fade without frequent personal contact and new, shared experience. Stephen Doheny-Farina knows this well and, in The Wired Neighbor- hood, tells us that the wonders of the elec- tronic universe, often touted as a way of uniting us, can, instead, divide us. No technophobe, Doheny-Farina is a comfortable user of MOOs and other tech- nology but sees a disturbing trend among people who prefer virtual to real commu- nication. The net, he feels, may be a place, but it is not as important a place as those where people actually live and work. Liv- ing on the Net has a long-term tendency to alienate us from our neighbors and our community, where real life must be lived. The answer, Doheny-Farina be- lieves, lies in relatively unexciting, but important, developments such as com- munity FreeNets, measured “not by the amount of international connectiv- ity they provide but only by the inten- sity of their local connectivity.” Of course, the promise of FreeNets, like << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. 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