Posted by bo peep on 11/14/05 21:21

<<What I believe is happening is that copyright holders want it both
ways. They want to benefit from widespread exposure. Then they want to
assert the right to not expose their work.>>

One key fact is that the copyright holder still *does* have the right
to decide to expose and sell their product efficiently, inefficiently,
or not at all. You, on the other hand, have NO rights to that product
or that decision. You have NO right to decide how the product should be
exposed or distributed. And you certainly don't have the right to
independently override that copyright holder's decision once it has
been made.

A real life example is http://www.stephenking.com/darktower.pdf where
Stephen King has elected to expose the first 8 pages of his latest
novel, evidently in hopes of pursuading people to purchase the entire
book. You would obviously not have the right to independently set up
your own website containing the entire book, without Stephen King's
permission. You didn't help him write that book...

If you don't like the way that the copyright laws work, then you should
be trying to pursuade your legislators to change those laws. Perhaps a
shorter lifetime for copyrights would be a solution.

John Cowart

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