This week a federal judge heard arguments to determine whether to approve the settlement between Google and two major arms of the publishing industry over Google Books. Many groups used this week's hearings to air grievances with the project. Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig argues an unintended consequence of the settlement could alter print culture as we know it.
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Comments [4]
It is very difficult to analyze political discourse when copyright issues limit what we acquire and use from an op-ed editorial. Paraphrasing is allowable, but this tactic introduces a secondary level of subjectivity. The Do Good Gauge is an attempt to bring political debate and problem solving into the public domain.
For more, read the article called "The Op-Ed Challenge and the Public Domain" at the following link:
http://www.dogoodgauge.com/site/DoGoodGauge/page_contents/display/90
If copyright is renewed in the manner suggested, registered after 14 years, it works for me but will it stop Disney from preventing fair use for eternity?
From Lessig's example of the medical chart it sounded like all of the text was available, just not the graphic. My question is could the chart really 'live' without the text or the text really make sense without the chart? Are these small bits of content that are removed from larger bodies of work really valuable and informative without their context? Or do we just want what we want, when we want it? Modern copyright laws are like poor treatment to a larger symptom of our cultural values moving from bodies of work to sound bites and what's recent vs. what's relevant.
On point which was not raised concerning ownership of intellectual property is who pays for the work. The example cited was probably the result of a study paid for by the NIH, conducted in a tax-exempt institution. The authors of scientific papers do not publish for ownership of the print, they publish to claim ownership of the ideas, to communicate with their peers. Authors of scientific papers do not want their papers kept from the public. they want broad access to their work. It's the publishers who want to limit access; the American Chemical Society, The American Medical Association, etc. I've had many problems with these pirates. The ACS wants multiples of my take-home pay for individual access to their computerized search programs, while nearly all the work cited by these programs was paid for by the public.
I thought your coverage of the issue was incomplete.
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