Pimps and Ferrets Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States: 1831-1891 Version 1.1 September 2010 Eric Anderson Version 1.1 © 2010 by Eric Anderson
[email protected] This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA Some Rights Reserved A Note on this Book Humanities academics in the United States generally receive little payment from the sale of books they have written. Instead, scholars write in an economy of prestige, promotion, and duty. Prestige comes from publishing with a reputable university press, from being well-reviewed in important academic journals, and from the accolades of academic peers. For a professionally young academic in the humanities at a medium-ranked institution in the United States, a peer-reviewed book at a mid-ranked University Press is essential for tenure and promotion. The doctoral dissertation (sometimes quite heavily revised) typically forms the core of this first academic book and sometimes several additional articles. Occasionally maligned, the the usual alternative to tenure is termination. Promotion (i.e. from Assistant to Associate Professor) leads to job security and a ten or fifteen thousand dollar increase in annual salary. In this context, book royalties are a negligible incentive. This book is a lightly revised version of my doctoral dissertation, completed in December of 2007. After graduation, I submitted it to a small academic legal studies press, where it was favorably reviewed by the editor of that press and by a knowledgeable senior academic associated with the Press, and accepted for publication.