Re: Just-out comment on *Eldred*

Lessig's point was that if you use an Adobe ebook Reader, the software doesn't permit you to copy text without the publisher's permission, even if the text is in the public domain. And the DMCA makes it illegal to hack around Adobe's weak encryption system in order to get at the public domain text.

Sure, you can use a different .pdf program that doesn't restrict copying, if you have access to one. But Adobe is the number one pdf reader on the market; many people aren't even aware that there are other ones. Public domain advocates fear that if the entire digital world goes to encrypted versions, the electronic public domain will be locked up by programs like Adobe's, and the DMCA will make it illegal to free them.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Professor and Co-Director
Center for Intellectual Property Law
Whittier Law School
3333 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 444-4141, ext. 243
(714) 444-1854 (fax)
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu

>>> Phil[_at_]CommandPerform.com 09/29/02 09:46PM >>>
List members may be interested in the commentary on *Eldred v. Ashcroft*
(on the SCOTUS agenda for 9 October) just published by BusinessWeek.

"A Case to Define the Digital Age," by Jane Black, is at: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2002/tc20020927_7367.htm

Okay. Read it. Digested it. Neato.

But I don't get this part:

>>The rise of the Internet makes such incursions all the more
threatening, according to Lessig. That's because, technically speaking, every download is a copy, which can be tracked and restricted by the copyright holder. So while you can photocopy a chapter of author George Eliot's 1873 novel Middlemarch and give it to a friend, that's not true for newer file formats.

>>For example, if you try to print or copy sections of Middlemarch on
an Adobe eBook Reader, you'll be informed that Adobe allows users to copy only 10 sections every 10 days. Readers of Aristotle's Politics, which as far as anyone knows was never copyrighted, aren't permitted to copy or print any text.

Huh? Obviously, I can copy and re-copy .pdf files to my heart's content, outside Adobe Reader.

or, am I missing something Received on Tue Oct 01 2002 - 17:51:46 GMT