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RE: A thought about H.R. 2281 - Anti circumvention
In any case, my question isn't whether copyright law covers digital content. It's whether it ought to cover digital content in the same way it would the physical contents of someone's home, by making it illegal to surmount the barriers lawfully erected by the copyright owner. Again: breaking into someone's house is illegal, even if you don't want to commit a crime after you get inside. Should breaking into a web site be illegal, even if you only want to make fair use of the information to which the site acts as a gateway? The question isn't whether the content is protected by copyright law, but whether we ought to protect the barriers themselves with a new law, the way we protect the integrity of household barriers with existing laws. ---------------------- Rick Anderson Head Acquisitions Librarian Jackson Library UNC Greensboro 1000 Spring Garden St. Greensboro, NC 27402-6175 PH (336) 334-5281 FX (336) 334-5399 rick_anderson@uncg.edu http://www.uncg.edu/~r_anders "A wise man knows that all gold is fool's gold. The irony is that such knowledge rarely comes cheap." * Anon. The problem I see with your analogy is that you're assuming that the one who erects the barrier is the "owner" of the content. With digital content, that presumption is often not the case. For example, the content of a database may be in the public domain, or rights beyond first publication of a particular article may belong to the author although the barrier is erected by the publisher. The bundle of rights covered by copyright law is not at all similar to rights to possession of physical items, which transfer wholly from possessor to possessor regardless of whether the transfer is by sale, license, rental, or gift. Rights to intellectual property can be chopped up in numerous ways, and reserved or transferred in whole or in part. Anti-circumvention measures can therefore give the implementer control of content to which he/she has no legal right, and indeed, control over content that belongs to the public at large. Terry Cullen Electronic Services Librarian Seattle University School of Law 950 Broadway Plaza Tacoma, WA 98402-4470 253-591-7092
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