Re: Shrinkwrap contract on books (fwd)

[Hal Cain <hal.cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au>]

Joe Esposito <espositoj@att.net> wrote:

> It [i.e. copyright] 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.)

Copyright in pictorial creations (including moving-image material) and
sound (including music) is likewise restrictive.

> The debate about this aspect of copyright is about economics, not a free 
> society.

In reality the debate is about bypassing copyright because the rights it
confers on the providers/distributors are not thought to be sufficient, or
the enforcement is too cumbersome or doubtful.  Hence the attempt to use
licences to prevent the purchaser from allowing another reader to have
access to this printed material.  In this case, restricting the flow of
information is certainly a matter of economics, but the effects on the
flow of information in a free society are not negligible.  If you're not
allowed to read the document, you can't recast it into a new account.

It occurs to me to wonder whether such restricted material can
legitimately be cited at all, e.g. as a footnote or in a list of
references for an article (or a thesis) -- it may well be that peer
reviewers or examiners of theses may not have access to verify that the
source has been used correctly.

Hal Cain
Joint Theological Library
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
<hal.cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au>