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Re: New Scientology Video -- and the Death of Copyright?
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 15:38:37 -0800
________________________________________ From: Alison Greenwald Neplokh [nosila () gmail com] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 6:32 PM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] New Scientology Video -- and the Death of Copyright? If I interpret Mr. Weinstein's missive correctly, he means to say that copyright is changed because it can no longer be used to suppress works. While copyright law can be used to suppress dissemination of an unpublished work, copyright's primary goal is to promote the dissemination of information. Indeed, the Copyright Act, through the first sale doctrine serves to, in most cases, protect against suppression by the copyright owner. Professor Anthony Reese of the University of Texas has a great article titled "The First Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks" (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=463620) that outlines the history of the First Sale Doctrine and how the digital world is changing that (by removing the first sale protection). Reese discusses several cases where copyright owners have sought to remove works from public dissemination for a variety of reasons and ways in which the first sale doctrine has helped preserve public access to these works. One of the cases Reese cites is the Worldwide Church of God's attempt to suppress dissemination of a book written by a church leader that was later determined to contradict church doctrine. The availability of millions of copies in circulation allowed the public to retain access to that information however "incorrect" it was in the Church's new philosophy. While the law should not reward those who violate copyright to bring a non-public work into the public eye, copyright law is not a tool for hiding information from the public. Perhaps the YouTube phenomenon is actually helping to restore part of the balance. -Alison ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- New Scientology Video -- and the Death of Copyright? David Farber (Feb 08)
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- Re: New Scientology Video -- and the Death of Copyright? David Farber (Feb 08)