ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on few basic copyright principles and briefly tracks the emergence of copyright law in the Western tradition, as pertains to the techne of rhetoric. It explores few representative developments in the current social media scene, focusing in particular on policies and ideologies that encourage rhetorical production and generation versus those that prohibit, restrain, or impede that production. The problem of copyright infringement emerged much later in Western history, out of the realm of print culture. Copyright and its rhetorical techne are constantly challenged by new technologies: the printing press, the Xerox copy machine, the desktop computer, the phone or computer linked to the Internet. Copyright laws helped regulate a complex economic network based on the production and distribution of texts. Copyright laws, regulations, and codes, some written, some unwritten, both constrain and enable writing. Copyright is of central importance to rhetoric, to writers, and to writing instruction at all levels.
