I agree with you on almost everything you say, Claude. The exception is the possible suggestion -- I'm not sure you mean to say this -- that because print piracy has such a long history, we should be grateful that digital piracy is less threatening....
Just the fact that Yahoo and Google announce that they are going to scan "all the books" in some eminent libraries, and don't explain (as you did) that only public-domain material can be legally digitized, does seem to give tacit permission for scanning of anything and everything. And the academic publishers have certainly been asking for trouble for a long, long time, by pricing their books and journals at a level that only research libraries can actually buy them. And yes, there are supposed legal protections in some of the worst piracy countries, and they work a bit better now than they did 20 years ago. I served as President and CEO of Harcourt Brace for several years and had the honor of being bodily thrown out of a bookstore in Taiwan because a colleague and I were trying to buy pirated versions of Academic Press titles so that we could file legal objections.... Nonetheless: my point is that many people have no idea that the right to copy something multiple times does not become yours when you buy a book or CD or DVD. We need to encourage people, I think, to consider the economic and intellectual consequences of this ignorance. Sarah Blackmun > > From: Claude Almansi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2005/10/13 Thu PM 03:22:03 EDT > To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [DDN] Intellectual Property Rights > > > Sarah Blackmun wrote: > > > > > Does anyone else think it is unethical (as well as illegal) to digitize > > works that are protected by copyright? > It can be unethical and illegal in some cases, but Taran Rampersad, whom > you seem to be answering was only speaking using Optical Character > Recognition with texts photographed in the library. > - If the digitalized copy is for your personal use and study, it is legal. > - If the work copied is in the public domain, it is even legal to > distribute it or put it online. > - What would be illegal would be to distribute and/or put online a work > protected by copyright > > > Don't the writers and producers > > of intellectual and artistic property own their works and have the right > > to control how they are distributed? > Yes, but copyright laws allow readers to make a personal copy for > studying purposes. And a text version is far more handy for studying > than a PDF. Not to mention that blind people will anyway have to > translate PDFs or image formats into text, by using OCR. > > > > (Don't Google and Yahoo and the university libraries know this? Of > > course they do!) > Not exactly: the Google project was halted precisely because of the > copyright issue. The Très Grande Bibliothèque Nationale of France so far > has only scanned and put on line PDFs, which seem locked - and the ones > I have seen are all in the public domain. I have not seen the Yahoo ones > > > > Do we have on this list any authors in the group who depend for their > > livings (or a part thereof) on the royalties they receive from books, > > music, film, etc.? And will they continue to publish such works if they > > can't receive a fair recompense for them? > I do - to a small extent, granted: royalties on 2 anthologies I > co-edited in the 80's. The rest of my writings don't produce royalties: > I was/am paid a lump sum for translations, most editing jobs and > prefaces. So I don't care a hoot if folks digitize these texts. > Actually, I have done so myself, and banged them online, when the > publishers remaindered the paper editions. > > Ever since Creative Commons licenses appeared, I have put what I write > online under a CC license: by NC (non commercial) - at times also SA > (share alike), when I felt like p...ing off some likely plagiarists. On > the whole, it has worked fine: got far more paid translations to do > since then. > > > > What will be the long-term impact on intellectual and artistic > > production if everything is in the public domain as soon as it is > > published? > > Mistaken assumption. There were pirate editions before digital age: ask > Oxford University Press or any academic press whose books got merrily > pirated and sold at 1/4 of the price in some countries; ask authors old > enough to remember being translated and published without authorization > or royalties in USSR. Well, USSR relented in the end and did give > royalties: in rubles, and it was forbidden to export them. So the > writers would go to USSR and have a luxury holyday on their royalties, > buy some furs (though for the better ones, you needed to pay in dollars). > > So yes, there are digital pirates. But if anything, making pirate > editions on the scale that was practiced with paper editions in USSR and > other countries is more difficult in the digital age, because if they > get offered online, it's easier to nab the pirates. > > BTW the above obtains for music and videos too, up to a point: there was > already a thriving pirate industry for cassette and videotapes in Italy > before the digital age, for instance. The problem with music and videos > is that big producers like RIAA are now digitally "protecting" there > works, which means that non-tech-minded users can't make a legitimate > personal copy for their own use, while tech-minded folks wishing to > break the law override the protections without problems. > > cheers > > Claude > -- > Claude Almansi > Castione, Switzerland > claude.almansi_at_bluewin.ch > http://www.adisi.ch > http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Claude > http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/claude > http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/languages > > > NB La mia messaggeria di posta elettronica è impostata per rifiutare > e-mail di più di 200kb. > Per favore, se *dovete* condividere un file pesante, mettetelo online e > mandatemi l'URL (si può fare con http://www.rapidshare.de ad es). > NB My e-mail client is set on accepting only e-mails under 200kb. > If you *have to* share a big file, please put it online and send me the > URL (you can do that at http://www.rapidshare.de , for instance). > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE > in the body of the message. > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
