Jeremy G. Byrne <jeremy[_at_]iz.org> wrote:
>
> On 7/07/98, Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote:
> >
> > If [a] professor is teaching a Shakespeare class, and [...] he uses
> > the new Oxford Shakespeare (ed. by Wells?) and simply photocopies a
> > play or two for a class of 200, we have a serious problem [...]
> > For the prof to refuse to ask permission is outright arrogant
> > thievery.
>
> If I have bought a copy of your book of public-domain information,
> surely I've adequately compensated you for the making of it, and can
> therefore do with it as I choose. Certainly, when I buy furniture, or
> clothing, or household appliances, the designer has been paid an hourly
> wage or annual salary for her efforts, and the manufacturer has no
> further right to tell me what I can or cannot do with his product based
> on the "creativity" or even "sweat of the brow" inherent in that design.
> Why should it be different for the designers or publishers of books of
> public domain material?
>
> Obviously, the existence of photocopiers reduces the publishers'
> potential market, but is this a good reason to grant them special rights
> to control the use of public domain information? By those rules, we'd
> have to extend copyright to all material products if we ever invented
> matter-duplicators, which is absurd. Why not let the market decide the
> availability of public domain material?
>
> What you're describing as "outright arrogant thievery" may be
> technically illegal in the US, but I'd really like to know why you
> believe it's _immoral_ too.
Jeremy,
Put yourself in (editor) Wells' position: You have spent many hours collecting, comparing, evaluating (with experience based-upon a lifetime of study), editing; someone else designed your product and typeset it. Now, they sell one copy; you get the royalty for one copy; and the purchaser gets the intellectual benefit of 200 copies.
Is this fair to you?
Randy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:30 GMT