ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the prevailing public myth of copyright, and contrasts it with the legal regime set out in the statute and case law. It points out that the theoretical literature about copyright commonly assumes that authors are in fact aware of the law's provisions and questions why authors cling to their own version of the copyright law rather than the actual one. The chapter suggests that authors believe in the popular copyright myth, rather than the copyright law, because the actual copyright law is less hospitable than the myth to the authorship process. The copyright law, which accords protection from the moment a work is fixed in tangible form and forbids infringement from the infringing work's inception, might stifle that process. The copyright myth, in contrast, presents no such obstacle. The chapter also suggests that theories of copyright divorced from the reality of what authors believe have only limited value.
