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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Actually with respect, your analogy with conventional property is seriously flawed. Once a book has been published, and is in a book store, the entire world is entitled to read it. The rights holder at that point can only control exert control over certain ways under which the work might be obtained by readers. But, for example, once the book is in a public library, anyone with borrowing rights at that Library may read that book and neither the author nor any other rights holder can restrict access to that work.
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Yes, you're right. There's a big difference between physical property (what I was decribing) and intellectual property or art. My analogy would not apply there.
However, what I was trying to get at was the issue of
entitlement. Some seem to think that if a piece of art was ever presented to the public for a price, that it has automatically become the permanent property of the public, and they should have access to it in perpetuity. I don't buy that. If a book is no longer in print, anyone who has previously paid for the item should have permanent access to it, ie, in your library example, the library should be able to loan the book out forever, but can they make 12 copies and loan those out, too? I would say no. If they needed more copies, they should have bought more when it was for sale; now it's too late.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
The basic problem is that the precedents of what constitutes fair use for electronic media is still somewhat fuzzy in situations like this; in large part because copyright law is still built around 18th century notions of what copyright should cover
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Bill
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Absolutely. And this is why we keep ending up in all these philosophical discussions
. The laws are hopelessly out of date with the way that "art" is presented nowadays, and many issues remain unresolved. I would like to see more cases coming up, so we can begin to understand what we do or don't own and what we're legally allowed to do with it!
--Maria