Re: Shrinkwrap contract on books (fwd)

[espositoj@att.net]

With regard to "the right to read" and the shrink-wrap foolishness, it may
be useful to recall how little--repeat:  how little--copyright law can do.  

It cannot in any way, shape, or form restrict the flow of ideas.  

It can, in certain circumstances (whose parameters are not always
perfectly clear), restrict the copying of the tangible expression of
ideas.  When the topic is nonfiction, the real issue is having someone go
to the trouble and expense of recasting ideas into a different tangible
form.  (With literature, where the argument can be made that the tangible
expression and the ideas themselves are one and the same, the situation is
more vexed.)  The debate about this aspect of copyright is about
economics, not a free society.

Joe Esposito

----------------------  Forwarded Message:  ---------------------
From:    "Stephen D. Franklin" <franklin@uci.edu>
To:      liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Shrinkwrap contract on books 
Date:    Fri,  6 Dec 2002 18:28:44 EST

Time to (re)read, Richard Stallman's "The right to read"
(Communications of the ACM, v.40 n.2, Feb 1997):
  http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/253671.253726

Stallman's projection of what life might be like in 2047 may not have to
wait that long.