RE: Clarification (RE: "Fair Use" Is Getting Unfair Treatment)

["Peter Picerno" <ppicerno@nova.edu>]

One addition or correction to the excellent point below: in the electronic
world one does not "buy" anything: one (or one's institution) is allowed
access (and allowed or not allowed certain other functions) based on a
leasing arrangement: just like with concrete property, one can live in a
leased building but one may not make changes or do certain things at the
will of the owner whereas when one owns concrete property, there are
certain rights of ownership such as changing the structure, willing it to
another party, etc., which are tacit with ownership. While one does not
'own' intellectual property, ownership of the 'container' certainly (at
least at this point in time) grants many more freedoms than leasing the
access medium does.

Dr. Peter V. Picerno
Acquisitions and Serials Librarian
Nova Southeastern University Libraries
3301 College Avenue
Fort Lauderdale   FL   33314
(954) 262-4662
FAX (954) 262-3946

-----Original Message-----
J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 11:46 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Clarification (RE: "Fair Use" Is Getting Unfair Treatment)

Well:  if you buy a copy of a book, you can keep it indefinitely; you can
lend it to a friend; you can give it away; you can leave it to someone in
your will;  or you can sell it to a second-hand bookseller.  If you "buy"
an electronic information product, how many of those things can you do
before the publisher says you are breaking copyright?

Fytton Rowland,
Dept of Information Science, Loughborough University, UK.

Quoting Rick Anderson <rickand@unr.edu>:

> A point of clarification:
>
> > Two recent federal court rulings in Hollywood's favor could undermine
> > consumers' historical rights to use the content they buy
>
> Actually, these rulings threaten to undermine consumers' historical
> rights to use content they do _not_ buy.  There's a big difference
> between buying a copy of, say, a book (which is generally what consumers
> do) and buyin the content of a book (which is generally what publishers
> do).  Fair use is about using content owned by others.
>
> -------------
> Rick Anderson
> rickand@unr.edu