the costs of copyright

Sometimes life in a world of strict copyright enforcement can seem like life in a world of crazy health insurance. My doctor doesn’t know what my health care will cost — keeping me from making informed decisions factoring in cost as one data point — and Harvard professors don’t know what their coursepacks will cost students after copyright fees are figured in. Students make illegal copies because they can’t afford a $500 coursepack. Who suffers? What is learned? [stayfree]

google print + harvard library

Interesting wrinkle in the Google Print Library project as it’s being worked out at Harvard Library. Publishers think Google needs to ask their permission before it copies their works, even if they’re in the public domain.

“The law does not permit wholesale copying (which is what digitisation is) by a commercial organisation of works that are still in copyright,” she wrote. “It is also illegal to make those works available digitally once they have been copied.”

Morris wrote that Google needs to obtain permission from publishers before using their work. While she wrote that it may be impractical to ask every publisher, Google should ask permission through collective licensing organizations.

Also interesting, seems that while Google Print actually destroys the books it scans, Google Print Library does not.