Stephen James Joyce, grandson of the writer and controller of the Joyce copyrights, is being hauled into court by an American academic who wants to argue Joyce’s aggressive use of copyright to control what is published about Joyce is itself an abuse of copyright.

Should be an interesting battle, since the academic is being fronted by (or is a front for) Lawrence Lessig. The New Yorker has a story about it this week. The power of the global academy versus the power of the Joyce fortune… who’s the little guy here?

Permission is one of the toughest parts of copyright for creators. We resist simply surrendering our rights to all comers. But at the same time we need to quote, to sample, to borrow, to refer, and we know the culture thrives on borrowing.

The complexity of writers’ views on permissions is nicely displayed in the lively litblog www.bookninja.com. In two posts dated June 13, poet George Murray looks with horror upon the publishing of the unpublished fragments of Elizabeth Bishop, a poet who valued control and discretion, and then looks with equal horror at Stephen Joyce’s ability to prevent broadly similar treatment of Joyceiana.