Re: Supreme Court Ruling--Copyright--New York Times v. Tasini

[Kent Mulliner <mulliner@ohio.edu>]

         Much of the discussion has identified two issues for libraries
from the discussions:  loss of content and increased price.

         As a collateral to these issues, I (and colleagues) am at a loss
as to why ALA and ARL were so strong in supporting the Tasini side.  I
recognize the moral value of rewarding writers for their work but at what
cost?  My first obligation is to library users and if, as appears likely,
they will have less content (either because the producers will not pay the
authors or that I am unable to afford the added cost of the databases as a
result of producers paying the writers), why are these leading library
organizations supporting a position that ill-serves our users?

                 kent mulliner, ohio university
___________

At 05:15 PM 6/26/01 -0400, you wrote:
>I have to agree with Anthony that researching, clearing, renegotiating (if
>possible) for rights to include this content WILL cost money...we will
>either have to settle for lest, or acknowledge that it will cost more.
>This will definitely take awhile to shake down, but I'd be astonished if
>it didn't have some kind of repercussions for us.
>
>Carole Richter
>Electronic Resources Coordinator
>University of Notre Dame Libraries
>(219)631-8405
>richter.8@nd.edu