more copyright

[Millard Johnson]

Laura Quilter said:
While I think the
question of whether librarians should or should not be copyright police is
perhaps debateable (I think we should NOT) - I think the obvious &
simplest solution is for would-be policers to police themselves.
*******
One wonders if she would give the same advice to us if 
we were observing her being mugged on the street.  I tend
to think an ethical responsibility of citizenship is 
to report violations of law - even if we are sympathetic
to the violator (in race riots, for example, beatings
should not be allowed to go on simply because our race
happens to be doing the beating) or the law is a bad
one (civil rights laws were not enacted until unjust
laws were publically enforced).  In our particular 
case, the one list member did not turn another into 
the law, but merely warned of a likely violation of 
copyright law.  Furthermore, librarians have a special 
responsibility with respect to copyright because 
information is our business.  

If we have moral convictions against the copyright law,
civil disobedience is an option.  But lets be upfront
about what we are doing.

Tom Kriz said:
Suppose I've worked for
years to develop the best tasting butternut squash this side of heaven.
(Yeah, I'm a vegaholic). You'd like to have some, but I don't want to sell
them. You'd especially like the seeds so you could grow your own next year.
My crop of wonderful squash is just lying out in my garden, and I can't
possibly eat them all. They are just going to rot. Would that entitle you
to enter my garden and take the squash I wasn't using? Would you want to
authorize the government to confiscate the squash I had grown and give it
to you so you could give the seeds to all your friends? 
*******
We do not know.  You have raised an issue of patient.
Our discussion concerns copyright.  If you read the 
copyright law, however, it clearly states that the 
OBJECTIVE of the law is to encourage the creation and
dissemination of information.  Protecting the private 
property rights of copyright holders is pretty clearly 
subordinate to, and a means to, the end that information 
is created and disseminated.
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Millard F. Johnson zendog at incolsa.palni.edu
"I would rather risk failure than achieve it without risk"
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