Chapter Seven
Licensing
The Copyright Act of 1976 was for the most part technologically neutral. For example, in defining the types of works eligible for copyright protection, Congress wrote of "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed.…"[1] The Pythia—the Oracle of Delphi—could not foresee the digital information revolution, and certainly not the topsy turvy world where accessing information has become more common than owning it.
The changes from ownership to access through licensing has significant consequences for libraries. Licenses can dilute and even eliminate critical rights for libraries and users, including the first sale doctrine, the library exemption, and fair use. For example, the section 107 fair use exemption permits a library patron, in most circumstances, to copy an article from a journal or a chapter from a book. But a patron may be out of luck if the library subscribes only to the digital version of the journal if the license precludes copying even small parts of articles.
Consider this example: Professor Wagstaff, who will speak at a national conference, wants to share with the other panelists copies of federal statutes and court decisions relevant to the program. The professor finds the documents on a licensed database, and, after removing any proprietary elements from the database, downloads the cases and laws and makes a print copy. By removing any copyrightable elements that had been added by the database vendor, such as annotations, he should be only dealing with public domain material that can be freely copied. But then he
- ↑ 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) (2006) (emphasis added).
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