Why a copyright column?
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Pages | 121-125 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378839910267307 |
| Author | Michael Seadle |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
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About the column
Why a copyright column in a journal devoted to
library technology? I would have been the one
asking that question a year or so ago. Then I
started working on digital publishing, and
discovered the wide range of intellectual proper-
ty issues any form of publishing involves. At first
it seemed to me that the issues were probably as
straightforward as “Is this work protected?” and
the answers as simple as “yes” or “no.” They
aren’t. In fact, the copyright issues can be as
new and complex as the computing code we use
to do some of the things which may (or may not)
cause copyright violations in the modern world
of networked information.
Why the complications? Undoubtedly there
are attorneys who make their money from culti-
vating quirks in copyright litigation. But the
more interesting and important reason is the
newness of the situations. Contemporary uses of
information technology have outpaced the
meanings of the words in the statute books. We
are, in effect, living in a virtual frontier where
the basic rules of behavior embodied in the law
sometimes have a disagreeable odor of foreign
importation because they seem written for
another society in another world.
There are two ways to respond to these com-
plications. One is the true frontiersman
approach: hide in the hills and hope the sheriff
never comes near your territory. The other is to
learn enough about the law to know how to get
the most out of it and how to help shape it. The
American Library Association and library
groups in other countries have lobbied actively
on behalf of library-friendly copyright laws.
Their efforts are important, but so are the day-
to-day actions which establish the common
practice and shared interpretations which the
law comes to embody. This column is not for
frontiersmen (or women). Its goal is to make
readers aware of copyright law and important
issues surrounding it.
This column is not, however, legal advice. I
am not a lawyer. I lack any semblance of legal
training. If you want legal advice about a copy-
right problem, there is no substitute for paying a
good lawyer to look at it in detail. What this
column provides is information and analysis. It
will do so by looking at specific cases such as the
one below involving Black Panther Party
Copyright in the
networked world
Why a copyright column?
Michael Seadle
The author
Michael Seadle is Editor of
Library Hi Tech
. He is also Digital
Services and Copyright Librarian at Michigan State University,
East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
E-mail: seadle@mail.lib.msu.edu
Keywords
Academic libraries, Copyright, Electronic publishing,
Information services
Abstract
Copyright is integral to everything we do in digital publishing.
This new column will examine a wide range of intellectual
property issues using concrete examples from current
projects. Since Internet-based publishing is automatically
international, the column will look at the British, European
and other aspects, as well as US law. This first column deals
with the question of whether a set of 1960s era Black Panther
Party pamphlets are in the public domain under US copyright
law. It also mentions the moral rights issues that would arise
in a German context. The final section of the column reviews
some of the information sources useful in answering
questions of this sort.
Library Hi Tech
Volume 17 · Number 1 · 1999 · pp. 121–125
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0737-8831
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