10.0894 copyright & fair use

WILLARD MCCARTY (willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk)
Thu, 24 Apr 1997 21:42:02 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 10, No. 894.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
Information at http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: Richard Bear <RBEAR@oregon.uoregon.edu> (21)
Subject: copyright/fairuse

While the battle of unequal forces goes on between the publishing trades
(who do after all have an investment to protect) and the academic community
over copyright and fair use, resulting in a flood of 19th-century editions
(I'm one of the guilty) onto the web and a scarcity of recent editions in
the very medium that could perhaps best distribute them, I begin to wonder
why I haven't heard of a "copyright conservancy" that would operate along
the lines of the Nature Conservancy, which has been reasonably successful in
buying threatened lands and retiring them from the development pool. The
Copyright Conservancy would be a consortium of concerned institutions, and
would serve 1) to identify and prioritize texts which it would be in the public
interest to acquire and distribute freely, 2) negotiate the purchase of
the right to do so, and 3) farm out the projects to those who, like the
University of Virginia, have demonstrated the expertise and rigor to carry
them through. Organizations interested in access for those with disabilities
might be among those that would be interested in helping to fund the
Conservancy. Publishers could be encouraged to revamp their image by actually
sponsoring selected recent titles, with prominent banner acknowledgement...

Richard Bear
rbear@oregon.uoregon.edu
http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~rbear/