Re: copyright under stress

On 6/23/2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> Yes, that makes sense, I guess. But isn't it the case that when
> the work assume digital form, that the presumption is that any
> "sharing" is really facilitating "copying"? Or can you think of
> some way that one can share a digital book without copying it?
> I guess I could buy a Rocket eBook appliance and download a book
> to it, and hand you the viewer appliance so you could read it
> that way. But it would be illegal to "share" an electronic book
> on a personal computer unless there were some way to prevent more
> than one viewer at a time, and even then it would have to be done
> by copying, I believe, and I don't believe the publishers would
> agree that this was "legal" sharing.

eBook publishers are working hard to making "lending" possible even though it includes making a copy. The solution is DRM -- Digital Rights Management -- systems. The new paradigm is to move from "copies" to "access". If each copy is locked and can only be opened by a user with the right key, then it doesn't matter if that user makes other copies as long as the DRM method ensures that those copies are not accessible. All of this is governed by certificates that implement the access rights. If your certificate allows you to "lend" a book (such as those designed for libraries), then essentially access is transferred to the copy, and blocked for the original.

Although the DRM systems in use in today's eBooks are relatively unsophisticated, standards are being developed that (theoretically) would allow a wide range of lending, copying, per use access, time limited access, etc. The XrML standard (http://www.xrml.com/) is one of these. EBX is another (http://www.ebxwg.org/).

Karen Coyle                    karen.coyle[_at_]ucop.edu
  University of California Digital Library
  http://www.kcoyle.net        510/987-0567
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