Re: Florida Pre-paid v. College Savings Bank

On 7/12/99, Lolly Gasaway <unclng[_at_]email.unc.edu> wrote:
>
> I am not sure that I am successful in changing their minds about
> making materials available with little concern for the rights of
> the owner. Despite my best efforts.

The fact that in spite of our very best educational efforts faculty and students still refuse to accept or follow all the provisions of the copyright law suggests to me that it is the law itself, and not our educational efforts, that is at fault. As Jessica Litman in "The Exclusive Right to Read" noted, "What we know about the general public's impression of the shape of copyright law suggests that the public believes that the copyright statute confers on authors the exclusive right to profit commercially from their copyrighted works, but does not reach private or non-commercial conduct." It seems pretty clear to me that most people in the US feel that they have the right to make a personal copy of a copyrighted work. And I suspect most people (other than copyright lawyers and intellectual property owners) would accept that unlimited copying in the course of non-commercial teaching and research is compatible with the constitutional goal of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts." If publishers want to sell things to the educational "market," they should do so by adding the carrot of value-added services that make their products attractive, and not by waving the stick of an enforced monopoly.

If the monopoly rights granted by the public to copyright owners were written to reflect public desires, law firms and Texaco would be paying rights fees to the Copyright Clearance Center, but there would be no need to change the behavior of faculty, students, and other non-commercial users. Unfortunately there is little likelihood that copyright laws will be rewritten to reflect the public's interest. Again, to quote Litman's brilliant article, "If the public is to play by copyright rules, then those rules must be designed with the public's interests in mind."

Peter B. Hirtle
pbh6[_at_]cornell.edu Received on Tue Jul 13 1999 - 14:09:32 GMT