Re: The Right to Read
Debbie G.

Sun May 17 21:34:45 1998
Deborah wrote,*br*: OK... this looks like a good board to open up a can of worms *br*: on <WEG>*p*Rather had a feeling I might be doing that <g>.*p*: Playing devil's advocate for both sides here... I can see *br*: the need for the laws (or at least self-policing) because *p*I'm not fond of the idea of more laws, though I wouldn't mind enforcement of the ones we've already got. I _do_ think that the internet needs to police itself. Peer pressure is generally more effective than a police state, and it's certainly less painful to the general populace.*p*: However, I'd rather have our stuff quoted/reprinted (even *br*: without permission) providing that proper credit is given *br*: (or possibly a pointer back here to Summerlands) than to *br*: have somebody change up a few words (thereby getting around *br*: the direct quote/copyright violation) and pass our ideas off *br*: as their own.*p*Agreed. And as the holder of the copyright, that's your right! Also, I forget the exact percentage, but it really _does_ take more than a few words to avoid copyright violations. Heck, the reason so much stuff gets blatantly quoted is because it's _hard work_ to summarize well. It requires one to actually engage, dare I say it, a brain cell or three <g>. And even when summarizing/paraphrasing, the ethical among us will still attribute the original source. I'm not even trying to deal with the folks who try to pass others' ideas off as their own. That's a whole other can of worms. My concern here was in the protection of copyright when the holder of said copyright has not given permission to reprint. Many people will quote an entire article which is already published elsewhere on the web. The ethical thing to do would be to comment about the article and then link to it, rather than quoting. That way the copyright holder's rights are protected and they don't lose anything (and they _do_ lose if I read their article here rather than on their site... my "click" doesn't register and therefore doesn't get counted toward the numbers that the site's ad revenues are based on).*p*: The other side of the argument is that we are moving into an *br*: information age where information must be allowed to flow *br*: more freely than it has in the past.*br*<snip>*br*: however, how many of us have access to *br*: all the papers around the world that might have articles in *br*: it that we need to know about?*p*This is where it starts to get really sticky and my personal benchmark tends to be "could my posting of this cause someone not to purchase X?" In the case of newspapers, you're right that your reading of a post from a non-national paper located geographically distant from you probably doesn't materially impact the paper. But what if the author had a chance to get the article picked up in syndication and the syndicator backed down because it had already been published widely on the internet? Or what if the post, sent publically to you, was also seen by hundreds or thousands of people who _do_ live in the coverage area of the newspaper. Now they're all thinking, "Wow... that's interesting. But if that's the entire article then there's no reason for me to get my lazy butt off the sofa, into the car and down to the corner newsstand." So now the paper _has_ lost revenue. (Yes, I was a newspaper editor once <g>.) I still stand by the idea that people should paraphrase, summarize and attribute rather than copying entire articles.*p*: I've got a post up on women's lodge right now on Sex and *br*: Marriage.  There is a large quote in it from _Sex and *br*: Marriage in Ancient Ireland_ by Patrick Powers.*p*I read that quote. Interesting stuff! Haven't had time to formulate a response yet. That particular quote was a pretty good example of fair use. It was a very small percentage of the entire book (quote a page of a book is much less problematical than quoting one page of a four-page brochure <g>). It was properly attributed. In the best of all possible worlds, it motivated someone to go out and buy/borrow the book. I don't have a problem with that type of quotation and I doubt the author would either.*p*: I guess what I'm asking is... where do we draw the line *br*: between free access of information in an informational age *br*: and copyright protection of an individual's creative *br*: property?*p*As a writer, my feeling is that _anyone's_ right to publish stops where my intellectual property rights begin. If I wrote it, I (and anyone to whom I've given publishing rights) decide if/when/where the material gets published.*p*Feel free to quote me on that. ;-)*p*Debbie G.
Re: The Right to Read
Deborah
33
Sun May 17 14:01:56 1998