Legal theory behind RIAA's lawsuits?

[miamidevice]

Joeysimms - it's actually illegal for you to walk into a library and photocopy an entire book. Just like if you go to Kinko's and ask them to do it for you they won't (or at least they shouldn't). Up here in Canada we have this thing called CanCopy, which is a set of guidelines for legal copying of printed materials. A copy of the guidelines is posted prominently above every photcopier in the library where I work, as well as in every other library at my university and I would expect that a similar set of rules is displayed in every public and private library in the country. I would be incredibly surprised if the US lacked similar laws. Lending rights (the kind of rights to copywritten material that you gain by joining a library, video store or similar institution) are quite different from ownership rights. To answer your question, they have photocopiers in libraries so that people can legally copy allowable portions of the library's holdings.

If you are curious about what consititutes legal and illegal copying of printed materials in Canada, you can go to www.accesscopyright.ca and fill your boots.

xo,
m.

[JES]

well, there is some extra leeway for using copyrighted material for educational purposes (under fair use, you can use bits of it).

Actually, university educators are getting squeezed (I know because I am one). I've heard tell of problems photocopying newspaper articles for classroom discussions, for instance. Every semester, I have to deal with some presses that have exorbinant prices for material to be included in copy packets. Keep in mind that I teach a big class (240 student) so any fee adds up quickly.

Many corporations want to charge me "for profit" prices to use copyrighted materials (usually images in my case) in nonprofit academic publications.

It is becoming more and more difficult to do the work of scholarship because corporate copyright holders are trying to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their holdings.

I am also a copyright holder. In fact, I hold several, and many others are "held for me" by publishers. In some cases, I've had to fight with the publisher in order to get my work disseminated (for instance, a reprint of an old article in a book--the publisher wanted to charge the new publisher an outrageous rate; this has happened more than once). The idea that copyright protects my work is ludcrous in the academic world -- royalties are in general very low for scholarship (which is why, I suppose, we draw salary -- so the parallel to music isn't exact, except of course for professors of music, but that's a whole other story since they often work in very esoteric styles). Rules against plagiarism are much much more important for protecting my creative output as a scholar.

Copyrights are extended much further than they should be, and in general are now designed to protect the rights of WHOEVER OWNS THE WORK rather than the person or people who created the work. That's one of the most fundamental problems.

Best,
--JES

[Osumosan]

In the East, intellectual property has always been highly prized and protected. My great grandfather was an herb doctor and guarded his knowledge. Now nobody knows what he knew. Too bad.

[joeysimms]

Copyrights are extended much further than they should be, and in general are now designed to protect the rights of WHOEVER OWNS THE WORK rather than the person or people who created the work. That's one of the most fundamental problems.

I couldn't agree more. I believe the original copyright law against "copying" or "reproducing" another's intellectual property was written with the sole idea of protecting someone from taking your original work as their own and attempting to make a profit off of it.

I also know that it's forbidden to photocopy an entire book, but, I was more trying to make the point that, were these interpretations of copyright ever enforced, we'd all go down. Everyone. And, there is no difference between me downloading 10 songs to make a cd comp for you, or, making a mix tape. You might argue that at least with the mix tape, I probably purchased the music I'm "copying", but, what 99.999% of the vinyl I own is bought second hand, if not third, fourth, fifth, etc. The original artist doesn't see a penny on these sales.

There's just no way to enforce copyright the way the riaa wishes to in this day and age. And since most major record company ceo's aren't on the streets begging change, I sincerely doubt they're going bust out there because of some college kid with 200 downloaded songs.