ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an essay about copyright, about writing and its relationship to copyright, and, finally, about the ongoing struggles with a specific crew of copyright holders who have refused to grant permission to quote language or reproduce images from the copyrighted works they control. Be kind or stupid. These words could serve as a kind of thesis for the essay, if thesis it's got, for when it comes to gathering permission to reproduce images not in the public domain, images controlled by folks wielding the seemingly infinite power afforded them by the copyright laws, that's what one, in the end, must do: be kind or stupid, wait some power's gratitude, the tide of things. The notion behind copyright is older than the US Constitution, but in tracing the history of copyright, it's useful to make a stop there.
