[WEB4LIB] Copyright books

[Edward Wigg]

On Thursday, December 12, 2002, at 11:39 PM, troyj at creighton.edu wrote:
> I do not think that copyright needs to be strengthened. I would be 
> interested
> to hear a scenario that someone considers a problem that is not covered 
> by the
> current law. I think they are many cases where enforcement is lax but I 
> do see
> it as a weakness of the law. Critical comments welcome. Also if you 
> have not
> read the books listed above you really should if you are a librarian.

The biggest problems with enforcement current copyright law are almost 
all to do with the fact that it is very hard for the little guy to use 
the law -- large companies can afford the lawyers, small ones and 
individuals can't, which ever side of the individual case they are on. 
But this is hardly specific to copyright law: the rich and powerful have 
more tools available to them than the weak and poor, and it was ever 
thus. My problem with much of the debate is that so much of the rhetoric 
revolves around the poor powerless author aching for his meagre crust, 
whereas it is evident that almost all the benefit of increased copyright 
protection and term goes to the publishers most of whom are already 
doing all right and see no need to give a larger share to the content 
creators anyway.

Lawrence Lessig also just wrote this article 
<http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,762935,00.asp> about 
copyright extension.

Edward