Re: [ARSCLIST] MP3 bit rates and usage factors for Web pages

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Steven C. Barr wrote:

> This actually is part of a much larger and more complicated
> question that is still being debated...namely, do public
> libraries have a right to provide free access to any
> copyrighted material? I have frequented both municipal
> public libraries and libraries operated by government-run
> schools (i.e. State/Provincial Universities, etc.) and
> have never had to pay anything except fines on overdue
> borrowed books. This could, of course, be seen as
> depriving authors and publishers of revenue!

Please someone correct me as needed, but it is my understanding that the
question of "right of first sale" especially as it applies to digital
information is indeed a topic of debate.

http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/1995-March/021969.html

"The Libraries and AAU strongly opposed the abolition of the
first sale doctrine for electronic information.  As the American Library
Association stated: 'Elimination of the first sale doctrine would
effectively give copyright owners control of the secondary market, and
thus empower them with far too great a monopoly.  The effect would be to
reduce competition and advance inequities in access--with results
antithetical to the intent of copyright and the working group's stated
intentions.'"

Libraries have functioned based upon the notion of the "right of first
sale." It is my understanding that this concept is more the result of the
notion of loan of the "object" versus the "information," or intellectual
property. Consider a person who buys an audio file from iTunes. Do they
have the right to sell that file? If so, it would seem they would need to
erase their own copy.

For me, some of the ideas being discussed raise questions regarding print
material, questions that have been considered perhaps within a limited
context. Is making a scan of a book, the same as making a photocopy of a
book? Subject to the copyright of the book, the intellectual property can
covered, however, it is not illegal for a library to have an unsupervised
photocopy machine available.

Some archives make a distinction between published and copyrighted
materials. I think about a recording archive which does not allow a patron
to dub a commercially released recording. The law allows a library to have
an unsupervised dubbing facility and the library cannot be held
responsible for any copyright violations that might occur. However, some
collections are deposited with the provision that the materials, either
recorded or print, can only be viewed and not duplicated.

I wonder what gives the donor and/or library, the right to limit that
access.

I see a conflict of interest of a sort when tax dollars are used to
preseve the history of corporation (say the broadcast recordings of the
Boston Symphony) when the orchestra retains control over access to those
recordings. From my perspective, tax payer money is doing the work for a
corporation...and of course preserving what would probably be
lost...however, as long as the orchestra limits access, it
would seem to me that it could be considered a conflict of interest.

And on the same track, one of my dreams would be such that any performing
organization that deposits its holdings in a state or federal institution,
be required to allow the holding institution to sell copies (downloads) of
what has been preserved, with a portion of those sales going to the
library or archive doing the work, even if the bulk of the sale goes to
the performing organization.

Along those lines, I wonder how the Milwaukee Symphony was able to
negotiate with its union, the downloads at iTunes of the Milwaukee
Symphony broadcasts. I think the Sierra Symphony No.3  cost about $3. I
would have been happy to pay $5 for it, or more, especially if I knew the
charge would be used, in part, to pay for the preservation of the
performance.


Karl (long winded as usual)