On this whole business of copyright of material on the internet,
with particular reference to the Web, I have had two thoughts
which I would like to throw into the arena.
1) The concept of copyright is derived from the need to
protect authors' rights in the field of printed media. The
emphasis is on the control of copying. This is perfectly
reasonable because publishers are respinsible for making copies
of works (i.e. printing them) and then distributing them for
sale.
In the area we are discussing publishers do not perform the
equivalent of printing. They publish, on a web server, a single
master version of a work. Copies are then acquired on demand by
readers. This involves making fleeting or longer-lasting copies
in the process of delivery to the end user. This makes it very
difficult to draw up a sensible and enforceable set of rules
based on the control of copying, particularly when technology is
developing rapidly.
If you think about it, what actually needs to be controlled is
the end use to which a work is put.
Software companies have recognised this by introducing software
licencing. If you use a piece of software without paying for a
licence that is in effect what you will be guilty of. Copyright
law is used against other software developers who plagiarise part
or whole of someone else's product, rather than against end
users.
2) Perhaps what we need are standard licences under which
material is published on the web, rather than each publisher or
author doing her/his own thing. The concept of standard
contracts is very common in the construction and shipping
industries, and probably many more than I am not familiar with.
Web publishing, being an international activity surely is just
crying out for such an approach.
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To summarise
1) Control end use rather than copying.
2) Have international standard licence terms for web
publishing.
What does anyone else think?
Peter.
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Peter W Duncanson E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Principal Analyst Fax: +44 (0) 1232 230592
Computing Services Phone: +44 (0) 1232 273410
The Queen's University Of Belfast or: +44 (0) 1232 335375
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