RE: Journal archives and Finally hitting the core question

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> In print it was harder, but people did it anyway.
<snip>
> And not just journals. Around 1960, some of my friends used to buy
> otherwise expensive math books, copied and printed in slightly reduced
> format on thin paper, produced in some Asian country and shipped in
> through a 3rd country. One had to pay in advance, with a money order made
> out to another individual, even though only 1 in 2 shipments came through,
> and the books were sometimes warped from sea-water damage.

Personal experience is a good argument.  I can buy this.  I'm not
convinced that this means digital content needs no more protection than
print content did, but I'll happily concede that there was more
(profitable, even) piracy going on in the print realm than I would have
assumed.

> >Then where is the coherent argument for allowing people to
> >circumvent those restrictions?
>
> The restrictions affect fair use also.

Publishers and librarians both do lots of completely legal and morally
acceptable things that adversely affect fair use.  Restricting access to
online journals so that only those who have paid for that access is one
example (to which I haven't really heard anyone express an objection yet).
Locking the doors of the library after hours is another.  I'm not a
lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that fair use rights do not imply the right to
gain unlimited access to all copyrighted material at all times by any
conceivable means.

> They also affect even paid use. Remember that when one has paid for
> access, one is entitled to get it. To say that having paid for access, if
> it doesn't work, you cannot hack it to get it to work, is not coherent.

Actually it is, as long as you have reasonable recourse that does not
involve hacking.  It makes more sense to me to require that providers
offer such recourse than to make hacking legal.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
The University Libraries
rickand@unr.edu