> How much legal force does any of this have? After all: .... Sure, of course, but my impression is that a lot of these things end up becoming precedents of what's perceived as normal. I grant I may be wrong about that. And I confess to knowing very little about publishing or the law. But: imagine that libraries were not established as a norm, and someone tried to start one today. The Author's Guild would promptly denounce this as theft; the fellow who attempted to found the library would (let us suppose) cave in, and then instead have some rule like, I'll put your book in my library if you give me permission. Some authors would praise this, saying, why shouldn't I decide what happens with MY work? But the result would be that norms would get established that would effectively prevent the library institution from ever getting off the ground. This is because most writers would be afraid to be the sole writer saying, yes, you can put my book in your library. And, to offer your book to the library, when few else would do so, would make the author worry that they were being chumps (a phenomenon well studied in behavioral economics with such games as the public goods game). And, perhaps most importantly, libraries really only work when they have a big selection, which they might not have if the content is being restricted in this way. So libraries wouldn't exist in any significant form. I fear an analogous thing is happening now; we're setting a social norm that (1) it's reasonable to say certain kinds of algorithms are theft (which, I might add, I continue to find deeply problematic conceptually: how bizarre to say that a function -- literally, a mathematical function! -- can transform a legally purchased good into a stolen good!), and (2) content controllers seem more and more to get to decide every form, every iteration, if not every instance, that the relevant content should take.
I hope I'm being too pessimistic. cd --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
