[BC] Another public station bites the dust

[Mark Humphrey]

On 6/26/06, Bernie Courtney <jerseyspikes at gmail.com> wrote:
>. With more and
> more research being done online, and traditional paper based material being
> digitized, there really ISNT a need for all the wasted space that libraries
> take up either.  Build some nice new condo's there instead, and put the
> archives in a rack of a data center somewhere and call it a day.

That makes perfect sense from the standpoint of convenience and
efficiency, except that the DMCA ("Don't Make Content Accessible"),
the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" (otherwise known as the Sonny Bono
Copyright Term Extension Act), and other recently-enacted legislation
would make a criminal out of anyone who "loans" protected materials to
online "borrowers" without authorization from the copyright owner.

Just trying to find the holder of copyright to an out-of-print
publication can be a daunting task in itself.  I have many old
broadcast trade magazine articles (the kind of stuff libraries throw
in the dumpster for lack of shelf space) I would like to scan and put
online, but this kind of activity is risky, even the website is
non-commercial and offers the materials under "fair use" guidelines.

Read some of Lawrence Lessig's opinions and you'll learn more about
these issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig

Mark