PLEASE DO NOT READ OTHERS' UNTIL YOU SUBMIT YOURS!!!
Technology will cause the demise of print publishers because they will be unable to prevent theft and widespread distribution of electronic forms of their publications.
We concluded that print publishers will not die off due only to theft and widespread electronic distribution of their publications. Their role in the marketplace might decrease as new technologies come to the forefront but theft won't be the major cause of this.
We came to this conclusion based on four reasons. First, people still feel comfortable with printed media. In as much as digital media gives you processing power over a document, once that processing is done, people want the comfort of holding something tangible. They want something that they can possess and handle physicallly. This might be the reason why the demand for paper has been as high now as it has ever been even with all the electronic information storage that exists now. People are also uncomfortable reading documents off a screen, especially when that reading is for pleasure. Also, the opportunity to mark up a document for future reference or to pass to someone else is gone.
Secondly, we felt that technology and legal measures could be combined and used to prevent mass theft to a certain extent. Besides carrying the publisher's name and copyright, making copies, whether in totality or derivative, would be illegal, unless authorized by the publisher. In a local environment, computer networks make it possible to enforce usage controls, to determine when access occurs, and to produce an audit trail, potentially producing better evidence for enforcement of both copyright and contractual rights. For mass market distribution, encryption technology can protect the interest of the owner by denying access to the intellectual property until payment is made. While not strictly based on technology or legal measures, other alternatives for preventing mass theft include imposing sanctions, such as denying further access to intellectual property, for violation of contractual terms and giving high visibility to prosecutions involving major thefts.
Thirdly, we felt that print publishers would protect themselves against forces that might cause their demise. This could be done by charging for access to their data. People would not mind paying for it because they would be assured of a certain level of quality. Another option would be to maintain levels of access. For example, they might allow for free searches through their data stores but charge for each retrieval.
Lastly, we felt that the role of print publisher would change. They would no longer be just in the business of printing but also in the business of producing and disseminating quality ideas, whether it be in print or some other medium. Thus people will look to them as arbiters of quality. As electronic publishing becomes easier it will become more important to separate accurate and thorough information from the vast amounts of mediocre information. Here, publishers can play the role of providing a seal of approval. Thus, people will be willing to pay to have the confidence that the information they are getting is accurate and up to date.
The group consensus on this question was that technology will not cause the demise of print publishers.
Publishers in the future will distribute publications in a variety of forms, including print. Issues of theft and widespread distribution of electronic forms of publications will need to be carefully researched. Although these problems may seem insurmountable, we believe that workable solutions can be found. Possible solutions to each of these issues are offered below.
Print publications will continue to play an important role. We identified several advantages that print publications would have over electronic forms. First, print publications are currently much more convenient to work with than electronic forms. Typically, a printed publication is much easier to carry around than a computer. Second, computers and the necessary network connections are not yet ubiquitous. We feel that the viability of electronic forms of publications is contingent upon easy access to computers with the necessary network connections. Although computers are available, most locations do not have enough computers in the right locations to make electronic forms convenient. Lastly, certain publications such as popular best-sellers would not really benefit much from being available in electronic formats. As such, publications such as these would probably remain primarily in printed form for the foreseeable future.
Our group agreed that the primary type of publications that may be distributed in electronic forms will be technical or reference in nature. Publications such as encyclopedias, textbooks, and technical journals will be the first to openly adopt electronic forms, though print versions will remain available for reasons of convenience and user preference for some time. It is our opinion that these types of publications will not be targets for widespread theft or distribution. The primary users of these types of publications are researchers and students. Existing copyright law allows limited copying for educational purposes. Though it is possible that educational users may make such material available to others in violation of copyright law, there is no appearant cause to believe that electronic distribution would cause an increase in such violations. Technologies which support protection of the copyright are expected to prevent significant problems due to such transgressions; this is addressed below. We would not expect to see any significant change in the distribution or copying of these types of publications if they were made available in an electronic form.
Theft of publications is also an issue with print publications. Although it is much more difficult to track the theft of electronic forms of publications, we believe that steps can be taken to keep this problem under control. One suggestion is to selectively pick which publications to make available electronically. Any publication that the publisher feels is a candidate for widespread theft and distribution would not be made available in an electronic form. Future operating systems could incorporate support for copy protection. Encryption of publications is also an option. Authorized users of a publication would be provided with the necessary software and decryption keys. This would most likely be handled through a subscription service.
We feel that keeping the cost low for a publication would also be a deterrent to illegal copying and distribution. If the cost of buying a copy of the publication is low enough, the time and effort to acquire an illegal copy would not be worthwhile.
In conclusion, while theft and widespread distribution are real issues, we feel that workable solutions can be found to minimize their likelihood and impact.
Print publishers shall not perish because of technology. Technology will make accessing information, and transfering it between individuals easier. But there exists no foundation to jump to the conclusion that technology will cause the demise of print publishers.
Another form of this debate that has been in the recent past. As technology has facilitated the storage and transfer of information, cassettes were predicted to destroy the recording industry, because it was surmised that no one would buy the original when they could make a copy of the tape so easily. This obviously didn't happen as the recording industry is still thriving today.
There is no denying that technology has made access to publishings more widely available. However, with this increase in technology there has also come an advance in security. Restricting access to certain indivuals, making information available, but not transferable. Possibly information will be made available for a surcharge. Documents will be protected from all but the most determined hackers. And what about the non-hackers, who will, for at least the time being, be in the majority. Those who really aren't computer literate. What possible advantage is there for them to try and obtain pirated digital information? Most people will just simply prefer the publisher's version. Also, despite what everyone is predicting, not every home has a computer, nor will every home have one anytime in the near future.
But even if documents do become widely available and every home does have a computer in it, this in and of itself, will not cause the death of the print industry. It will still be easier, and probably cheaper, to buy the original publisher's version of a document. Yes, you could download the entire Washinton Post for a day for free, but could you do it as cheaply as if you went to a newstand and paid a quarter? You could obtain a digital version of a book, but would you really want to have to sit at your computer to read it? The only other option is to print it out, thereby losing any advantage you gained in obtaining your 'free' copy. No, it is still much more convienent to obtain a publisher's copy. Thereby giving the individual freedom in choosing where and when to view the document.
Early debates on this issue divided the group in two. Some members believed that the statement was true and computers were just too bulky and too fragile, in terms of sand and sun contamination, to be used at the beach. The rest of the group believed that it was certainly possible to have computers substitute books at the beach. Consensus was reached between the two camps when the reason for difference in opinion was found to be timing. The statement had to be viewed from two points: today and five to ten years in the future.
At present computers are too bulky, very vulnerable to environmental contamination, and their batteries not strong enough to provide enough energy to have a reader spend a day at the beach. Those computers that have been built for complete portability (e.g, Apple's Newton), lack the screen resolution to make leisure reading enjoyable. The group also discussed the fact that readers are used to seeing a page or two at a glance which, due to today's monitor construction, is almost impossible on a computer.
The future of portable computers, book-readers, is hinted at by emerging technology found in such devices as the Apple Newton. Computers developed with "the beach" in mind will certainly support long-life battery technology or alternate power sources, be robust against sand, water, and sun (the first fully submersible, lightweight computer will be a hit), and have a screen resolution that doesn't take away from the actual feel of a book. Voice recognition techniques will improve such that the "keyboard-less" book-reader becomes a possibility. Instead of leafing through a book, the book-reader will allow its user to leaf through libraries of books at the beach, annotating sections and inserting bookmarks, all by voice command.
Price should be no issue with computers of the future. Widespread use of technology will drive prices to a minimum, similar to the way that paperbacks are sold for a few dollars. Two issues that will help in making these book-readers as cheap as or cheaper than books can be considered. First, the medium on which books will be stored can be found in miniature compact discs or some variation thereof. The manufacturing and duplication price of CDs is already much lower than that of book printing and paper manufacturing. Second, it may not even be necessary to purchase books on any kind of physical medium. With the advancement of cellular technology and low-altitude satellite networks one might have access to digital libraries around the world to download any book in storage. A system could be created such that every time a user accesses a digital library to download a book a fee is assessed on the user's credit card account. The initial cost of the book-reader device could be recovered after only a few book readings. Unlike printed books, which require extensive recycling processes to re-use the physical media, electronically published books can share a single display device, reducing the physical resources required by a reader, though many hundreds or thousands of books may be used over the lifetime of the device.
The group agreed that lighting was not a true issue that impacts the use of computers in casual conditions. Given the right screen, any lighting situation can be overcome. It was mentioned that even reading paper books can be difficult in bright sunlight. Here a computer screen could be more convenient if it can automatically or manually be adjusted to the lighting conditions of the environment. Other options that may exist in the near future could include projectors affording a heads-up display, allowing a user to lay back and read "looking at the sky."
In summary, the concerns and issues addressed here for reading at the beach also apply to less harsh environments such as having computers at the bedside. With voice recognition and computer speech a reader could lay back in bed and have the computer read the book aloud. The group acknowledges that current technology is just a small step away from making the "beach computer" a reality, carrying the advantages of digital publishing forward.
The recent explosion of Compact disks in computing along with the increasing public and political support of the "computer superhighway", leaves the average person believing that the print publishing industry is doomed for extinction. However, the use of laptop computers for everyday reading seems to be overestimated. The idea of an entire family gathered around the breakfast table reading their favorite newspaper section on their own individual computers or crawling into bed and snuggling up with a laptop (to read a good book) are feasible scenarios, but highly unlikely. Humans have a deep fondness and attachment to their printed newspapers, magazines and books.
The primary appreciation of printed material is its convenience and leisurely nature. For most people, carrying a 5 to 10 pound portable is not much more straining than toting around a book. However, the reader can maneuver and get more comfortable because not only is a book usually lighter but much less bulky. A book or newspaper can also be spread out over a larger surface area so the user can see the overall structure. Portable computers have a much smaller viewing area. In addition, no one worries about a book breaking down, running out of battery power, or having a glared screen. Imagine sunbathing at the beach, have you ever worried about your magazine getting sandy or setting down your book to take a quick dip in the ocean with the fear of your $3.00 magazine being stolen. Your only major concerns are a big gust of wind or a huge wave. Your view would change if your had to worry about a $2,000 computer.
In addition, the personal touch of printed material is also greatly adored. We find a certain appeal to seeing the paperboy delivering the morning edition or discussing the latest novels with the local Borders sales clerk. This human sentiment can be seen with the current aggravation towards the replacement of bank tellers with ATM's. The cost of electronic media, especially that which is portable, is too high for most middle to low income families. Current laptop computers are also too bulky, not user-friendly and inconvenient. However, given a few years, laptop computers may approach perfection; become reliable, contain glare free screens, contain longer battery supplies, drop in price, have access to expansive published collections, and rival the weight and size of most books. They are certainly outstanding research tools and are the lifeline for business competitiveness and improving education. But for leisurely reading, they will never replace a good paperback book or the daily newspaper.
Group concensus on this issue is that some submission standards should be used to ensure standardization in publications. Several issues were raised relative to standardization and electronic submission. Aspects of the problem that were addressed include convenience for authors and effectiveness of requiring semantic encoding of document content. While there are many unresolved issues regarding the form such a standard should take, having some standard is perceived to be sufficiently important that one should be adopted by publishing organizations which intend to accept electronic submissions. Several possibilities for standards, such as SGML, extensions of LaTeX, defined styles in Word or WordPerfect, were mentioned by members of the group. The standard for submissions need not match a publisher's internal storage format, but must be well defined. Multiple formats should be supported to maintain flexibility for authors.
Ideally, submission standards should be transparent for authors, allowing tools to be selected according to the author's personal preferences and working style. For example, an author should be able to use a word-processor like those commonly found on today's personal computers, text formatters similar to those typically used on workstations in academic and research environments, and high-end structure-driven publishing systems used by publishing houses and the documentation providers for military contractors. Common tools used today to produce individual documents which could be considered "submissible" in this ideal circumstance would include Microsoft Word and LaTeX. The goal of allowing these tools to be used is to encourage electronic submissions and processing by publishers while easing the transition for authors; shifting the mode of manuscript transfer should improve the ability of the author to concentrate on creating content rather than providing an unwelcome distraction.
The controlling issue that arises is simply that these tools are primarily structured to support page-oriented formatting. While LaTeX offers good support for large-scale formatting, mark-up for small elements is lacking. Much of this can be handled by defining additional commands and environments within the context of the existing document styles and classes, but some checking will be required to ensure that documents do not include non-conforming mark-up, as might be exemplified by the "\bf" and "\it" commands in a LaTeX document. Implementing the required semantic mark-up in LaTeX classes is entirely feasible with the existing system, and is often used in the academic publishing industry. Future availability of adequate tools which support required standards is primarily a problem of software development.
In summary, the use of standards for electronic submission is reasonable and significantly beneficial for the production and use of publications. Current technology allows multiple submission formats to be supported, as long as each may be interpreted to construct any internal format required by a publisher. The primary obstacles to standards for electronic submission are the design of the standard and implementation of mark-up mechanisms. These should be considered short-term problems which can be solved with existing technologies.
Group 1 disagrees with the points being made for the following reasons:
1. The ACM publishes its journals for its readers and not for the writers. There are more readers of ACM journals than there are writers. To force each reader to have to adapt to each writers' style and format would place an unnecessary burden on the readers and detract from the usefulness of the journal as a whole.
2. The ACM is in a publishing business. To allow any electronic format for submission would require the ACM to keep and maintain many different electronic formats and specialized equipment. This would pose an unnecessary economic burden on the ACM and detract from the usefulness of the information presented in the journals.
3. Ignoring issues of standardization in the submission process would result in ideas not being presented in a timely fashion. Lack of publishing standards and submission standards would slow the approval processes especially for the refereed journals.
4. Presentation of ideas is still a writing skill. Graphics can be used to emphasize a point, SGML, and HTML links can be used to refer to reference information but these concepts are unnecessary to the presentation of an idea. If the idea is a good one, then it will stand on its own. Graphics and SGML, HTML references are unnecessary for the presentation of ideas. This information can be provided by the author.
Group 1 felt that the ACM should publish guidelines for electronic submission of articles. These guidelines should not discriminate against writers economically, and should not be too rigid as to restrict the presentation of ideas and yet keep the format and content of the information useful to its readers.
Electronic publication should be funded by a system of subscriptions, so users are encouraged to make use of published materials that are covered by any of their subscriptions.
From our discussion, we feel that the funding of an electronic publication by a system of subscriptions does not necessarily encourage the users to make use of published materials that are covered by any of their subscriptions. A subscription system encourages the publishers to provide more materials and better services since they anticipate that their efforts will generate a certain amount of revenue. Some subscribers believe that a portion of the purchase price is dedicated to improving the quality of products and services and thus they tend to place a higher value on the publication and use it more often. However, people are generally more willing to pay if they can physically possess a product as in the case of magazines, books, or magnetic and optical media. With electronically published materials, the consumers often place less value on the information because it is not in a tangible form. Also, it is often the case that the users are not certain of how much they will use the services. Therefore, they tend to hesitate to pay in advance. If consumers are unwilling to subscribe, they cannot be encouraged to make use of the published materials. In addition, most users would like to be able to browse and check out what is available in order to decide what to use. The subscription system may prevent the users from doing this. Another point that should be mentioned is the fact that users are often having troubles connecting to the network via modem and thus are prevented from using the electronically published materials at the time they need to. This tends to get worse as the number of users is rapidly increasing in the recent years and as the use of electronic publication becomes more common. Consumers will be very discouraged if they are often unable to use the services which they have paid for. In these cases, the users often turn to the traditional libraries for materials free of charge.
Another issue is that subscribers may become overwhelmed with information. With the available funding, publishers may produce more information than the users actually need and in turn make the use of published materials more difficult for the consumers. As a result, the subscription system may discourage the consumers from continuing to use the published materials instead of encouraging them.
The consensus of the group is that this is the recommended solution although there are quite a few drawbacks to be noted. Our discussion also drifted to the various pros and cons of electronic publishing versus paper.
Advantages of Electronic Publications in general are:
Drawbacks to electronic publishing in general:
Advantages of Electronic Publications being funded by subscriptions are:
Drawbacks of Electronic Publications being funded by subscriptions are:
ACM should not call for proposals but should instead carry out an ambitious electronic publishing effort in-house, that should rapidly break even financially.
Our view on this issue is that both these policies should be pursued by the ACM in parallel. Only if there is a concerted effort in-house in tandem with soliciting proposals from outside will the plan have any success. We arrived at this conclusion after considering the following arguments:
In summary, based on the above points we feel that the ACM should start an aggressive effort on electronic publishing but should not ensconce itself in only its own ideas.
We disagree. We felt that ACM needs to do both calling for proposals and doing electronic publishing in-house. We did not feel both of these ends were mutually exclusive. ACM has a unique role in the marketplace because it functions not just as a professional services organization for its members but also as a focal point for the industry and the public interest in general.
Calling for proposals is a means by which ACM can generate interest in new and promising areas. By being the central clearing house for research efforts it can coordinate research efforts among various institutions. This serves many purposes: It eliminates redundant research in the same area by institutions who are not aware of what is happening elsewhere. More importantly, it helps direct research efforts to what the marketplace really demands. Thus research in irrelevant areas can be reduced. But doing this requires a constant and dedicated effort by ACM to ensure that it is really following marketplace demands. We felt market research, an industry focus on all its activities and constant feedback from its members would help in this.
As mentioned earlier, we did not feel that an electronic publishing effort in-house is inconsistent with calling for proposals. Just as calling for proposals allows for new ideas from various sources, electronic publishing allows for mass access to that information along with ACM's seal of approval. These days, the marketplace demands instantaneous access to the published information. ACM can fulfill that role by providing digital library access to them. This could be free to its members and with a small charge to non-members. More importantly, ACM can serve the role of the arbiter. It can be the evaluator of information to ensure that any information accessed from its libraries are of the highest quality.
The group consensus is that there are more advantages to using outside vendors as opposed to an in-house effort. The reasons for this are:
There are, however, some problems with using an outside vendor:
Unanimously, our group completely agreed with topic 6, "There are too many electronic publishing forms and standards, and too little user-oriented access software, to motivate people to buy into the new technology." Our concern was not that many forms and standards are being used, but rather the absence of a universal and usable method of access. The existence of variety in forms and standards allows for competition and continued innovation and evolution in the realm of electronic publishing. However, we feel that many good works would not receive the attention one might expect because users either do not have the necessary access software such as viewers or readers to browse that technology. or more likely, that the some of them simply do not know how to read the electronic publication.
A case in point in usability is MIME and packages such as metamail. When configured and functioning correctly, they are an enormous help with the electronic dissemination of documents, but otherwise are an impenetrable morass of complexity to the novice user. Similarly, when a World Wide Web (WWW) browser such as NetScape or Mosaic has its "helper applications" properly configured, the WWW becomes a much more useful tool; indeed, it can become a true "multimedia." But how many novice computer users know how to configure (never mind INSTALL) all the helper applications necessary for seamless WWW browsing? How many even know the role they play, or, indeed, of their very existence?
We believe that if the following steps are taken into consideration, users would be more encouraged and excited about electronic publishing. At a minimum, products should be created compliant with widely disseminated and supported, non-proprietary standards. Then more effort should be dedicated to developing products like Adobe Acrobat that standardize materials across different platforms. Lastly, the underlying complexity should be hidden as far as possible such that users need not be concerned with any implementation details of an access software, but simply understand its functionality. Then, and only then, will electronic publishing be truly useful to them.
This was a complex question since it deals with several different issues: standards, available software, and motivating people to buy. The group's overall feeling is that while there are still many differing standards, technology and the marketplace have and will continue to push vendors to standardize and provide more user-friendly interfaces.
Reasons to support the topic statement:
However, the topic statement concerning standardization is not as true as it may have been several years ago. Some points to note:
Copyright is a useless concept for digital libraries because publishers will control and charge for access to and use of digital works.
Conclusion: The group agreed that a Copyright concept can be applicable in the context of digital libraries, in order to provide a minimum protection scheme against the reproduction of original work. Because license agreements can vary a lot from publisher to publisher, the use of Copyright law is desirable as a means of establishing a "common basis" for such agreements. Different degrees of protection can then be established depending on the different license agreements.
We disagree with the statement that Copyrights are useless. Creators of original works should not rely on the publisher to control and charge for digital works.
Without copyrights, publishers may modify or resell a work without the author's knowledge or agreement. The author would have less legal recourse in his agreement with the publishers. A copyright may not completely prevent the illegal distribution of digital works but it will at least set acceptable parameters between the author and the original publisher.
Software publishers have sophisticated encryption tools that prevent the average user from copying works. However, in the event the encryption schema is broken and copies are made, a copyright will provide some legal recourse for the author.
Freeware relies on copyright laws to control distribution and usage. It prevents brokering of software that was publicly or Federally funded. It protects the original authors from liability for usage outside the original intent. It promotes the sharing of ideas as long as the integrity of and credit for the original work is maintained.
While not a perfect solution, copyrights are still a viable, necessary option for the electronic world. Copyrights will still provide some protection and legal recourse against the illegal distribution of digital libraries.
Given the federal government's role in NSFNET and the NREN, ubiquitous networking seems imminent, and means that there will be national networked access to future digital libraries. One result will be serious problems with international copyright violation due to the ease of transmission.
Conclusion: When national networked access to future digital libraries exists, the international copyright violation will be serious problems due to the ease of transmission. The copyright owners must enforce the access and use, and get revenue from uses than from sales of copies ( pay-per-use ). The technologically protected copies should be develope for restricting access. One or more organizations should be founded and regulations should be made specifying who has what rights to control what kinds of access to information resource in digital form.
Agree. The movement to electronic media, not just ubiquitous networking, has created an international copyright problem. For example, bootlegged copies of Windows 95 were available in the People's Republic of China for $2.50 a week before the official release.
While a serious problem, the problem has been recognized and work has begun on both technical and legal remedies. On the legal level, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is a potential foundation for dealing with the copyright issue in a multinational environment. The Berne Convention has four main points: National treatment, preclusion of formalities, minimum terms of protection, and minimum exclusive rights. National treatment ensures that an author's rights are respected in another country as though the author were a national (citizen) of that country. For example, works by U.S. authors are protected by French copyright in France, and vice versa, because both the U.S. and France are signatories to Berne. Preclusion of formalities states that copyright cannot be dependent on formalities such as registration or copyright notice. However, this provision does not prevent a member nation from taking adherence to formalities into account when determining what remedies apply. The minimum terms of protection is the life of the author plus 50 years. Signatory nations may provide a longer duration if they so choose. Finally, minimum exclusive rights requires that a nation must provide for protection of translation, public performance, adaptation, paternity, and integrity.
The experiences with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) provides another reference source for experience in this area. EDI is in wide use in American and foreign commerce, using industry-specific standards for discrete commercial documents like purchase orders, invoices, and payment orders, developed through the American National Standards Institute Accredited Standards Organization X12. EDI already has addressed many of the contract law and implementation questions that arise in technical systems for protecting intellectual property in the electronic environment. These lessons learned provide insight into potential alternative for addressing the copyright issue.
While various legal alternatives are being pursued, the implementation of legal remedies is a concern. Unlike technical remedies, legal remedies depend heavily upon the commitment of the local government. Some governments, however, have not subscribed to international agreements, such as the Berne Convention. While in other cases, the international agreements might not align with local statutes. U.S. copyright law, for example, does not quite align with Berne. Finally, some local governments might find it to their advantage not to address the copyright violation issue.
International copyright infringements are already a serious problem. Expanded networking which has increased access to digital libraries has exacerbated the problem. In addition, more barriers to illegal copies are being lowered as the US Government withdraws from regulating the Internet.
However, the situation may improve as business organizations step up to replace the Federal government?s role on the Internet. The responsibility for protecting intellectual property will fall on those organizations that have a vested interest in that property.
Encryption techniques and tightly controlled distribution channels will have to be developed to slow the international copyright violations.
Copyright laws are difficult to enforce internationally. International accords similar to trade agreements will have to be reached that promote mutual enforcement of international Copyright laws. N.B. SEE ANOTHER TOPIC 8 DISCUSSION AS NUMBER 29 BELOW.
Derivative works will be commonplace, and primary publishers will suffer greatly from those who have shaped and combined prior work in such a way as to abandon giving credit to original sources.
Conclusion: We agree with this argument. First, because of the possibility and necessity, the derivative works will be commonplace. The plasticity of digital work makes it easy to modify a work or even combine several works to form a brand new one. Since no work is perfect, especially for software, also because of the quick change of the computer world, it is necessary to modify and update the existing digital work. So, all kinds of derivative works will be commonplace. Second, if the credit of the original sources is not given, the primary publishers will suffer a lot. Obviously, the derivative works generally have some advantages over the originals. Generally, they are better and they have fewer errors, thus, they are more attractive to users. Because it is easier to create a derivative work, the authors of the original work generally spend more money and time on their works. So, the derivative works have some advantages in the market when they compete with the original works. If there is no proper kind of agreement, the primary authors will have a lot of financial loss.
The creation of derivative works will occur more frequently with the distribution of digital libraries. Copyrights will become even more important in protecting the original creator(s). Guidelines will be needed that help determine when an illegal copy has been made or derived from an original work.
Software publishers will have the same problems and similar solutions as book publishers. If the publisher does not own the copyright, they will need firm agreements with the original creator.
Some would argue that derivative works should be encouraged as long as credit is given to the original sources. Different interpretations of a work become its own intellectual property and provide additional benefit. The difficulty will be in determining how much and when credit is due to the original creator.
Before it is possible to discuss copyright laws covering digital media, it is important to separate the medium from the works which any copyrights may cover. Since the digital medium can be used to represent photographs, audio, video, text, executable programs, etc., we must focus on the works instead of the medium itself, just as we must separate music or movies recorded on analog tape from the tape itself.
One problem with such a notion arises from the plasticity of the digital medium -- it is usually quite easy to transform a work which is in one digital format into another digital format. For example, a short story may be represented by a text format, by an audio clip, or by a scanned image of a printed page which contains the story. In non-digital media, the means of storing a work has a great influence on the copyright laws which govern that work. But the digital medium provides a means of storage which covers many different types of work.
Since most current non-digital media have similar digital forms, it is tempting to try to extend current copyright laws to include these digital forms, and to treat them in the same manner as their non-digital counterparts. The ability to transform a work in one digital form into another digital form can cause many problems. For example, if the original form for a poem is text, and one recites the poem, thus converting it into an audio form, then which set of laws will cover the work -- those for digital text, or those for digital audio?
The ability to combine several works in different digital forms (such as text, audio, and video) into one larger work causes problems as well. When a multimedia presentation uses several different digital forms, what body of copyright laws should cover the entire work? If the work is predominantly digital video, should copyright laws for digital video cover the entire work? Should there be a different body of laws for multimedia works?
While these points are major hurdles for classifying works by media type, it is still felt by this group that they can indeed be cleared. It has taken some time and some trial and error to arrive at our current set of copyright laws. As new media were introduced into our society (such as videocassettes) we created new copyright laws to cover them. We feel that, with time, we can arrive at a set of laws which works as well as the set we have for current non-digital media.
PREMISE: Copyright law cannot begin to deal with the multi-media, given that multimedia publications will become widely used.
The flaw with this premise deals with the idea that multi-media publications are somehow extraordinary new technical achievements that copyright law cannot hope to differentiate. Let us look at what a multi-media publication is: it combines text, sound, moving pictures, and still pictures, and it presents these various items in a unified format that can be more than the sum of its parts. This is where the rub lies in the copyright tradition. Say for instance, we take the Ken Burn's masterpiece on the Civil War and we take out the narration that was wholly original to that piece, and instead we put in pieces of historical narrative that existed in tapes or records. This whole piece then presents us with the dilemma that we have with multimedia. The entire piece consists of pictures that have copyright protection under existing copyright laws, there is music overlaying the pictures that have copyright protection under current copyright law; and then we have narratives that also have ownership protection accorded them. However, the whole of these parts is a powerful piece of documentary art that makes us think differently, makes us ponder, astonishes and moves us--by any definition, a work of art. How do we provide copyright protection to it since it is made up of all these pieces that individual copyright to them?
The answer lies in a compromise of sorts, and since all law is compromise, there is nothing new here. The first part and main responsibility lies in the hand of the creator of the multimedia piece: he or she is responsible for obtaining permission and rights to the various copyrighted pieces that make up the piece. The rights of the authors to these various pieces do not diminish when they are in a multimedia format since the presentation of these works are no different from their original context: a picture is no different when presented on a flat video screen than when it is presented on a piece of paper even when it is overlaid by text, sound or graphics that might change its meaning, it is still a picture. When the permission and rights and payments have been worked out, then this new piece of work should then be able to be copyrighted under a new multimedia copyright. In other words, nobody else can then present these images, sounds, and text in the same sequence and order as the author of a previous multimedia work. The copyright law has then defined a new area, however, none of the old areas have been compromised. This requires a new way of thinking about what is an original piece of work. While there are arguments to be made to classify works by digital media. However, this will unnecessarily restrict the protection accorded the unique nature of the idea and inspiration that came up with that multimedia work. If all that is required to lose legal protection is to move to a new digital media, then the speed at which technology moves means that all copyright protection will be fleeting.
The main consideration for this point is the trade-off between copyright violations and performance. If the licenses for the information stored in the hierarchies expressly allow duplication for the purpose of optimizing performance, then there is no trade-off. If the licenses discourage or prohibit such duplication, then the trade-off must be analyzed by members of the hierarchy to determine what is best.
Frequently an organization will purchase a body of work to be made available to its employees. The organization may not have enough in the budget to purchase a copy or a license for the work to cover all of its employees, so it may buy several copies, or perhaps even one. These copies might then be shared amongst the employees of the organization. If a single copy of a work is electronically shared over a network within the organization, then an employee's ability to access the information is hindered by the speed of the network and the number of other employees trying to access the work at the same time, among other things. This bottleneck reduces the performance of the system which provides the work to its employees. The performance of the system would be greatly improved by providing a personal copy to all employees of the organization, but it would be very tempting for the organization to infringe on copyright laws to do so.
In any event, if a work is legally shared, then it is still open to being copied illegally. The more personnel to which the work is provided, the greater the chance that someone will illegally copy it. For an organization to protect a licensed work against such use would be very difficult and expensive, and could reduce retrieval performance even more.
PREMISE: Storage hierarchies with personal, department, campus state, regional national, and international levels will operate with multiple copies of each work available in places chosen to optimize performance.
The argument for this is the Internet itself. The more popular a piece of work is, the more it is accessed and eventually the rate of access will cause a slowdown to the performance of the whole network. This makes the idea of multiple, mirror copies of a piece of work more attractive since it will spread the access of the work to different points making the system less loaded and clogged up at one point. However, there are several drawbacks to this reasoning. The first is the cost of maintaining multiple copies, it is not something that is feasible for most matters. Even when the cost is acceptable, as in the case of large databases, there is a whole additional scale of problems associated with multiple copies that also raise their cost and make them possibly more unreliable. The most important item about question of multiple copies in a storage hierarchy is the problem with maintaining these multiple copies and making sure that they are mirror copies. It is in the nature of humans that the more steps required in a particular task, the more chances there are to make mistakes, and the more mistakes that will therefore occur. No matter how much we can automate the process of storage hierarchies, there is still a very important nexus through which all automation has to proceed and that nexus is the human being who is responsible for the whole thing and this will be the point where the system fails. So, although the idea is attractive, the associated problems are more than the benefits provided.
Technology will eventually solve the problem of access of data since the bottlenecks that exist now will be solved. When that happens, the idea of storage hierarchies will be restricted to questions of access hierarchies. The organization, campus, and personal level can control the access of the data based on the user's access and level within that organization, negating the need of multiple copies. Subsets of data can be set to be accessed by different levels of the organization. On a personal level, keeping multiple copies is and always will be a matter of protecting works in case of technical trouble.
In some ways, this statement conforms to current copyright laws fairly well. For example, when an editor compiles an anthology of poems, the editor is given credit for compiling the book, yet the original authors may only be given credit once inside the book. Also, when a researcher builds off the work of others, he/she gets credit for a composite made from such work, and may only acknowledge the authors of the original work once.
An important point to consider is how much value and editor may add to a compilation. If the editor performed a lot of valuable work by assembling related information into a single body of work, then they may have done a job worthy of merit. If an editor adds their opinions to the work of others, then they have added creative material to the work.
How much credit such an editor receives should depend on how much compensation the original author receives. When a musician writes a song and records it on one of their albums, and the song is subsequently used in a movie, then the musician receives royalties when the movie is released (and perhaps for a long time after). When a programmer uses code that was created by someone else, but is useful to a new program this programmer is creating, then should the original author receive compensation? In any event, one should not use someone else's work without permission from the original author. N.B. SEE ANOTHER TOPIC 11 DISCUSSION AS NUMBER 30 BELOW.
PREMISE: With highly linked collections of materials like hypertexts and their search trails, whose raw materials originated from numerous sources, copyright protection and remuneration should to the new editor, and not to the original authors.
Again, this presumes that hypertext is something that is wholly different technically from anything else associated with copyright protection. Highly linked collections of material such as hypertexts and their search trails are analogous to edited volumes of articles or essays. When authors agree to have their works included in a volume, they are compensated accordingly. Similar compensation agreements should be in place for electronic works. Just as editors earn royalties and copyrights for their work in analyzing works from a particular field, bringing them together, writing introductions and search trails, and providing other "value-added" work, so too should the work of "editor" of hypertexts. The editor is responsible for arranging compensation, credit to all the authors whose works he or she uses in the hypertext work. All the protection of copyright still is accorded to all the works used in the hypertext.
The main problem that lies with this is something that occurs with all technological achievements. With hypertext and search trails, only a small portion, the very essence of an author's text, will be required for a hypertext work since the search trail ensures that only what is immediately relevant will be accessed. This ensures that a hypertext editor will not usually need to provide anything more than credit for the original source of the text. It is very rare that the author will be able to claim compensation since compensation in the written word is usually tied directly to the amount of the text that is taken by the editor. If the hypertext proves to be immensely popular and profitable than this becomes somewhat unfair to the authors whose work has been taken. However, there is not much that can be done in this. It will have to be one of the areas of inequality that will occur with hypertext works.
As with most technologies, electronic publishing began with numerous, incompatible formats and little communication among application developers. Another problem was that the typical distribution method was physical media (e.g. floppy disks). Any electronic document transfer was done through proprietary, incompatible systems. Few people were willing to invest in a format that may have been defunct within a few years. However, because electronic publications are digital, they are inherently malleable. Assuming that enough formatting information exists, it is relatively straightforward to convert one format into another.
Within the last five years the landscape of digital libraries and electronic publishing has changed. The advent of user-friendly internet access tools has given rise to remote electronic access of electronic documents. Transfer standards were required to allow different types of computers to move information back and forth. These network standards removed a large barrier to the acceptance of electronic documents.
The World Wide Web (WWW) in particular, has created a de-facto standard with HTML by way of its interconnectivity and immense popularity. WWW browsers have been created with ease-of-use in mind and have brought internet access to the average computer user. As the WWW becomes more popular, it will become more commercialized and, eventually, nearly anyone will be able to access nearly anything -- for a price --.
There are at least three areas in which electronic transmission of documents causes problems with international copyright laws. The first is the question of national security. The second problem is that copyright laws are different in different countries. Also, some countries do not recognize a copyright from other countries. The third problem is due to the ease of reproduction of electronically available documents. There is also the question of enforcing the copyright laws from the point of distribution or the point of origin.
There is a large class of programs and documents that fall into the realm of "export control laws". Though they are freely distributable in the United States, they may not be sent to other countries. Although it is relatively straightforward to control international access of documents from the primary server sites, there is no effective way of preventing a U.S. user from downloading the document and mailing it to someone outside the U.S. To the contrary, it is illegal to search personal mail unless the searching authority has a warrant to do so. Because of the extreme ease of duplication, this loophole effectively nullifies any other safeguards that may be imposed, short of denying access to all.
Although copyright laws protect intellectual property in a majority of the industrialized countries, they differ from one country to the next. Also, many countries, though they have their own copyright rules, do not recognize copyrights of other countries. This problem alone would require an author to copyright her/his work in EVERY country with internet access before making it available electronically. The only effective solution is for a basis of international copyright laws and rules to be developed by the U.N. These laws would protect electronic works in the same way that International laws govern ships and materials on the high seas.
In the event an international standard is not emplaced, which country's copyright laws should be adhered to? With physical media, the author could determine the countries in which his work can be published, and the number of copies for each of those countries.. With electronic documents, one person in another country could copy the document and immediately make it available to the world to access as many times as desired. The author of the work has no control over its distribution. If copyright rules are invoked, which country's rules should be used, those of the author(s) or those of the point of distribution.
Furthermore, in the electronic world, it is more difficult to determine exactly what a "point of distribution" is. A new approach to WWW usage is to have cache servers which hold copies of relevant documents for a short period of time. Because the document is temporary, is a proxy server considered a "point of distribution" or is it thought of in the same manner as videotape (e.g. tape = time shifter; proxy-server = proximity shifter).
Internet usage has been increasing exponentially and shows no signs of slowing down. It is reasonable to assume that the networked community will have little tolerance for either a reduction in performance or in the high cost of continuously improving the underlying infrastructure. A solution to the problem lies in improving performance by migrating documents to locations that are geographically close to those who use them most. Caching copies of permanently archived documents satisfies this.
Within the domain of hardware and operating systems, it is almost inconceivable to use a machine without virtual memory or disk cache. In order to achieve the same performance levels without these mechanisms would be prohibitively expensive. In the same vein, caching documents on servers near clients provides a large increase in access speed with only a modest increase in the overall cost of providing the service. By providing mechanisms to remove cache copies of files that are underutilized or are out of date, the cost of adding the cache servers should be minimal, as compared to the cost of improving the network itself.
The existence of multiple copies of a document raise some questions. To address the question of copy consistency, the cache server may have a policy of checking with the primary server on every access or at regular intervals as to whether or not its copy is current. Security and royalties collection present problems that have not been widely addressed. HTML packet headers, along with one or two other transfer protocols, provide enough information to identify clients accessing particular documents. It can be assumed that a standard will eventually emerge that limits those who have access based on one or more criteria.