Recent Copyright Office Report Misses Chance To Support Digital First Sale Doctrine For Libraries
- From: J Flenner <varney@[redacted]>
- Subject: Recent Copyright Office Report Misses Chance To Support Digital First Sale Doctrine For Libraries
- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 18:00:14 -0400
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http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20010906.html
LETTING PUBLIC LIBRARIES DOWN: The Recent Copyright Office Report
Misses A Chance To Support A Digital First Sale Doctrine For
Libraries
By JULIE HILDEN
julhil@[redacted]
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Thursday, Sep. 06, 2001 | FindLaw's WRIT
The federal government's Copyright Office
<http://www.loc.gov/copyright/> recently released a report on
several issues relating to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act,
on which Congress had asked for its opinion. One of the most
important questions the report addressed was, in the words of the
Copyright Office, "whether to expand the first sale doctrine to
permit digital transmissions of lawfully made copies of works."
The "first sale" doctrine is what allows a book purchaser to lend
a book she has bought and enjoyed to family and friends, without
fear of a lawsuit from the author or publisher. It also lets used
bookstores, such as Amazon.com's Z-shops, capture all the gain
from the sales of used books, without having to share it with
authors or publishers. Finally, it enables libraries to freely
lend out books to anyone with a library card, again without
making any payment to the author or publisher beyond the price of
the book's initial purchase.
The Copyright Office punted on this issue by refusing to opine as
to whether there should be a digital equivalent of the first sale
doctrine. Its decision was cowardly. Without a strong endorsement
of some kind of a first sale doctrine for e-books, public
libraries may be seriously hurt in the future.
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