Head of S.F.'s Library Resigns Under Pressure (fwd) -

[CMUNSON]

I like to think that I have a pretty sophisticated, albeit non-mainstream, view 
of information politics on the Internet. If I remember correctly, folks emailed 
all kinds of copyrighted material to each other 5 years ago, but there wasn't as
much material online.

I can understand the need of information providers to recoup their costs, but 
they have to understand that people have a tendency to share information. This 
is to the information provider's benefit. If I forward Washington Post online 
articles to my friends (which I do occasionally), they are alerted to the fact 
that washingtonpost.com is a valuable news source. They will be more likely to 
visit on their own in the future, thus providing washingtonpost.com with another
hit, and possibly a click thru to an advertiser.

I guess this is tangential to what I'm getting at, which is What is fair use? 
Should librarians adopt the industry ideal, that every use has a fee? Or should 
they adopt a frre-for-all (which I kind of like)? Or the happy medium, which I 
think is exemplified in the forwarded post about the S.F. library director. This
is a news story which is of interest to this community, thus it is worthy of 
sharing. I see this all the time on other lists that I am on.

I have to reiterate that I am disturbed to see librarians acting as copyright 
police for this publisher. I know that a few on this list agree with me.

Chuck Munson
Washington, DC