A Copyright Masquerade addresses questions around copyright enforcement online and how measures to tackle it may engage the right to freedom of expression. It logs the back-story to the policy battles today about online platforms and how they should tackle harmful content. 

It has had amazing reviews which you can read below, but I have not been paid for writing it and I receive no money from the publisher for either eBook or sales. All I ask is that you cite it in your dissertations and research. Students  and academic researchers can get it via your university library. I've put the links in the text below. 

Entertainment Law Review: "[Horten's} methodology in analysing the policy-making process is thorough, has the benefit of hindsight and is buttressed by freedom of information requests. It tells a tale that needs to be heard. Anyone interested in the future of copyright law in the European Union and the role lobbyists and corporations play in shaping legislation should read this timely and provocative book."

Electronic Frontier Foundation: "A Copyright Masquerade can verge on academic, but it remains engaging. At times, the legislative history (and the scandal involved) even has elements of intrigue. But most importantly, it's extremely informative and demystifying, right from the first page's handy table of common acronyms. For those interested in the structures that influence copyright policy around the world, Horten's book will prove a valuable resource."

Media and Arts Law Review Although A Copyright Masqerade is euro-centric in its focus, similar dynamics are evident in other parts of the world, not in the least the current proposals in Australia regarding online copyright infringement and the close relationship the Commonwealth Government seems to enjoy with certain large rights holders. Furthermore, the concept of policy laundering copyright provisions through international trade treaties has made a resurgence with the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreements currently under negotiation. All of this makes Horten's study of great relevance to these contemporary processes in both Europe and Australia,

Society for Computers and the Law magazine (SCL law): "Monica Horten has made a wonderful attempt to wash away some of the ignorance surrounding copyright and 'freedoms'. [...] I do recommend it heartily. It should foster further debate - and make it easier for the next major policy debate to be conducted more transparently."

ZDNet: "these cases show a great deal about how modern lobbying works in any field. Today's lobbyists don't settle for rolling up to legislators' offices and making their case. No: they draft entire pieces of legislation. They policy-launder, persuading multiple countries to pass the same provisions [...] None of this is democracy as we would wish it to be carried out. Horten's work is, accordingly, important: it explains why the evidence and the popular vote can all line up, and yet not be reflected in the law that finally passes."

Futurezone.at: "Die britische Wissenschaftlerin Monica Horten, [...] sp?rt in ihrem vor kurzem erschienen Buch "A Copyright Masquerade" den Machenschaften der Unterhaltungsindustrienach und zeigt auf, wie demokratische Prozesse durch die Taktiken der Industrielobbyisten unterwandert werden."

(Read on for more reviews)

Plus...

EDRIgram Recommended Reading 23 October 2013

Kevin Townsend "In defeating ACTA, the people made it very clear that they do not want ACTA - more specifically the internet-controlling, copyright-enforcing aspects of it. To understand the great Battle of ACTA, read Monica Horten's new book, A Copyright Masquerade."

Texas State University Intellectual Property and Scholarly Communications News Digest Fall 2013 "Monica Horten details how the entertainment industry gains political sway, and how policymakers respond to the industry's advances with respect to intellectual property laws."

Academic reviews

"This brilliant expos? shows how corporations and industry lobbyists manipulate the governance of digital networks to their own advantage. Behind the rhetoric about 'free markets' and the 'openness' of the net lurks a power politics reminiscent of the opium wars. Horten provides a detailed, beautifully written case study of the way neo-liberalism routinely and cynically cancels out the very rights and freedoms - privacy, due process - its legitimacy depends upon, as soon as they threaten to impede the pursuit of profit. A must read for anyone interested in how the contemporary mediascape has been prestructured to favour corporations over individuals." Graeme Kirkpatrick, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Manchester University

"A Copyright Masquerade is an intriguing narrative about the ways that the copyright debate in the UK has been shaped by key stakeholders in their own interests to the point where it threatens online freedoms. This book is a compelling read for lawyers and others interested in the development of intellectual property law and it will stimulate important debates for years to come." Professor David S. Wall, Durham University

"In this timely and well judged analysis, Horten demonstrates that the internet age, far from transforming corporate politics has merely shifted the concerns of policy-makers and powerful private sectors interests. If there has been a change, as she establishes, it is in the inability of copyright politics to continue to be conducted in smoke-filled back rooms. This book allows us to be guardedly optimistic about the ability of political process to properly balance the legitimate rights of consumers and copyright holding corporations." Christopher May Professor of Political Economy, Lancaster University

If you are an academic or student, you may request that you library gets it - please forward them this link. Some libraries will have access via Bloomsbury Collections. 

Table of Contents for A Copyright Masquerade

Preface

Part 1 - Internet, Entertainment And Copyright - A Political Perspective

1. Copyright Politics and the Internet - An Introduction

2. Copyright and the Internet - What is at Stake?

Part 2 - The American Influence: America, ACTA and Special 301

3. Entertaining American Objectives

4. A Secret Copyright Treaty

5. Brussels' Copyfights

6. The EU Masquerade

7. Special 301 for Spain

8. Ley Sinde

Part 3 - The Politics Of Music: Britain and the Digital Economy Act

9. A Memorandum with no Understanding

10. Ministerial Manoeuvres

11. Looking Behind the Myth

12. Musical lawyers

13. Obstacles in the Lords

14. A Cowed Parliament

15. Lifting the Masks