Re: Reserve permissions not fast enough ?

From: Donald Berman <berman[_at_]ccs.neu.edu>
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 16:10:28 -0400 (EDT)

Thaddeus writes:

>

> Last night I was discussing this with a friend who has a satellite
> dish set up for receiving television programs. He has a "black box"
> that can unscramble the signals. He did the following: Identified a
> program in the guide that he would like to see, pulled out his VISA
> card called a 800 number gave them his VISA card # and the number of
> his unscrambler, and the picture went from scrambled to unscrambled in
> less than five minutes. They sent a signal over satellite directly to
> his, and only to his, black box. His VISA account was debted for the
> cost of the call and program.
>
> It is not that we don't have the technology, it is that we are not
> willing to pay more for it. Why don't publishers have an equivalent
> to Books in Print on the Internet that is a consortium? Why do
> the depend on libraries using Bowkers behind the times CDROM? Not
> organized enough? Even the used book dealers were able to get
> ANTIQUARIA up and running in a very brief time. Do publishers know
> about the Internet? CARL has a nice debit system for periodical
> copies, copyright paid and all.
>
> Do we just need to nudge the publishers?

A fine point.

I suspect that publishers would benefit from a centralized computer clearing house that allowed one to otain permissions with same ease that one acquires something by a computerized catlog. The quick availability might even reduce the number of permissible fair use claims by the copiers.

  Don Berman --  

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Received on Sun Sep 26 1993 - 20:10:27 GMT