RE: IP industry control of use

[J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk]

In all these arguments it is crucially important to distinguish between
scholarly publications -- where the author gets paid nothing by the
publisher -- and other kinds of publication where, as Rick says, authors
earn their living from their copyrights.  Stevan Harnad has repeatedly
made this point.

When growing up, I could only eat because of copyright -- my father was a
freelance writer.  But now, as an academic author, I get no money from
publishers for the transfer of my copyrights, so I think the publishers
should get value for what they pay!

Fytton Rowland.


Quoting Rick Anderson <rickand@unr.edu>:

>>Common and accepted practices
>>regarding individual and institutional use of intellectual property are
>>being turned into a per use/per device toll road
>
>Personally, I'm a big fan of toll roads.  Only the people who use them get
>charged, and the more they use them, the more they pay.  It's much fairer
>than taking that money out of the paycheck of someone who can't afford a
>car.  But I digress...
>
>>What a strange way to negate copyright
>>laws. You bought it--it isn't yours because i've hidden a license
>inside.
>
>That's kind of like saying that employment contracts are a strange way to
>negate the right of free assembly.  I may have a constitutional right to
>stand on the sidewalk with my friends and talk about politics, but I also
>have right to sign a contract saying I'll show up for work at 8:00 in the
>morning on Monday, and thus voluntarily limit my right to do other
>things at that time.
>
>But that's another digression, because the problem with shrinkwrap
>licenses is mutuality.  Until UCITA passes in Nevada, I'm not taking
>most shrinkwrap licenses very seriously.  I'm no lawyer, but as I
>understand it, if the contract isn't mutual it's not a contract.  You can
>put a shrinkwrap license in there if you want, but I'm not under any
>obligation to adhere to it.
>
>The IP industry has not shirked at wild and overblown scare tactics and
>statements. There is no reason they shouldn't get a bit of their
>own tactics back.
>
>Actually, there's a very good reason: this conversation needs grownups.
>Wild and overblown scare tactics are stupid no matter who they come from,
>and they don't solve the problems, which are real (on both sides).  It's
>stupid to cast librarians as moustache-twirling copyright guerillas, and
>it's also stupid to cast owners of intellectual property as venal,
>money-grubbing copyright fascists (though both characterizations may be
>accurate in certain cases).  Publishers are not wrong to be worried that
>the new information environment presents a threat to the integrity of
>their copyrights; librarians are not wrong to worry that pending
>legislation presents a threat to the legitimate sharing of copyrighted
>information.  But nobody outside the library profession wants to hear what
>librarians think about this conflict because talking to librarians about
>copyright is too often like talking to Rush Limbaugh about welfare.
>
>If anything the library and user community has been too quiescent in the
>face of the aggressive behavior of the IP industry and its well placed
>lobbyists. A really "cute" argument that they've repeated: "we have to
>eat too".

SNIP

> Rick Anderson