From Playhouse to P2P Network: The History and Theory of Performance under Copyright Law in the United States

This essay examines the expanding meaning of performance under United States copyright law, and its implications for twenty-first-century media culture and performance studies. As new communication technologies emerged in the twentieth century, copyright owners advanced an innovative theory of performance called the "multiple performance theory" that made every transmission of a record of a performed composition itself a performance of it. Established as current law by Congress, this theory sees practically everyone who operates a media device as a performer and, in combination with recent technical and legislative developments, grants copyright owners in the digital age extraordinary control over their works.