Copyright Advocates Picket at LOC

The Salt Lake Tribune has this article on computers programmers picketing at the U.S. Copyright office. It includes a complete breakdown on the current issues surrounding copyright.


\”For 103 years, this niche of the Library of Congress has overseen the registration and cataloging of books, music, movies, architectural drawings and any other creative works that can be copyrighted. Its staff toiled in obscurity, with controversies rare and protests unheard of.
Then came the Internet…

The Salt Lake Tribune has this article on computers programmers picketing at the U.S. Copyright office. It includes a complete breakdown on the current issues surrounding copyright.


\”For 103 years, this niche of the Library of Congress has overseen the registration and cataloging of books, music, movies, architectural drawings and any other creative works that can be copyrighted. Its staff toiled in obscurity, with controversies rare and protests unheard of.
Then came the Internet…


\”Then came the Internet, raising knotty questions about how people use, borrow, steal and protect intellectual property on a new medium flooded with information. Should Web sites be able to wall off their content so thoroughly that college researchers can\’t easily get at it? How much should so-called Webcasters pay to play copyrighted songs? Shouldn\’t producers of valuable content such as movies be afforded the utmost legal protection against hackers and other would-be thieves?\”


\”Some of these issues are being tested in courts — for example, the rock band Metallica\’s case accusing the Napster Web music service of letting users illegally pilfer copyrighted songs. Online publishers and others are fighting in Congress, too, for stronger legal protection of their assets.\”


\”At the Copyright Office, similar questions are pitting the likes of Sony Corp.\’s computer-game unit, Time Warner Inc. and other producers and purveyors of creative content against community libraries and universities, which fear that all online information could end up being fenced off. \”It used to be relatively few businesses fighting over these obscure, arcane rules,\” says Art Sackler, vice president for law and public policy at Time Warner, soon to be acquired by America Online Inc. \”All of a sudden, intellectual-property rights and copyrights are very important indeed.\”