Copyright in a Remixed World

Illustration by Gustave Doré. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In 1941, the French author Pierre Menard wrote “truth, whose mother is history, [is the] rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future.” Menard, a contemporary of the Godfather of psychology, William James, wisely asserts that historical fact is not what happened, but what we believe to have happened.