Re: Re: Copyright Expiration ?

On 03/08/2012 3:19 PM, Beth Young wrote:
>
> "But what worries me most is an assumption, following very intense
> campaigning by Google, that there is some "orphan" problem. "
>
> Well, in my job (university teaching), orphan works have been a problem.
> When a copyright holder can't be located, I can't assign the work to my
> students because I can't be sure they can obtain it. They can't buy it, I
> can't include it in a coursepack, etc. I could put a single copy on 
> reserve
> in the campus library, but these days, many courses are offered online and
> the students live too far away to go there.
>
> Perhaps what is a problem for educators is a boon for others--perhaps the
> benefits outweigh the drawbacks overall--but that doesn't make it less 
> of a
> problem for educators.
>
> Beth
>

Ah, Beth, right. Now I understand where you are looking at this from.  I 
do know that views on copyright and publishing are different in the 
educational community generally for two reasons. One is the one you 
state, availability of specific works for courses. The other is that - 
broadly speaking - academics are more interested in disseminating their 
works where it will improve career prospects (in particular) than in any 
commercial aspects.

Dissemination is covered without affecting overall copyright, both by 
free licence and by Creative Commons.

But the other is a problem. and it is made more complex by the wide 
variations in copyright laws, both within America over the past  80 or 
so years, and variations between American and international laws for the 
similar period.

Without having an idea of the field or specific works you are concerned 
with I can't comment on your own problem.  But I am surprised that there 
would be many scientific works that are difficult to link up. In the 
literary field, for some areas, it can be a problem because there is 
just so much stuff, and so many publishers have disappeared or been 
swallowed up. None of that is helped either by the fact that ISBNs are 
not all that old!

And I have had he experience myself, so I am aware of how annoying it 
is. That was about finding a copy of the book at all! Even so, I do not 
feel that my frustration is reason for risking a whole industry. That 
does not mean there might not be useful changes; which is why I 
expressed interest in what you were saying. Do you want to expand either 
on the books involved in your own problem, or on the way your idea might 
work, or both?

Joseph Harris


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