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Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 32

All right, all right. Readers won’t let me get away with the single comment in the last blog entry I had about the article in the New York Review of Books — and I think this feeds into the long-standing conversation I have been having with J A Jacobs. Simply put: I do not think libraries, as institutions, have any role in claiming a “public use” provision within the infrastructure of copyright. In other words, print and paper technology gave libraries a “gap” between those who owned the information and those who want to use it. While library circulation did not threaten the sale of the same material through the private market, information producers were quite comfortable in letting the libraries enjoy the “free ride” of offering their information products without any compensation for the free use. It was good public relations and a “feel good” partnership.

The mass digitization of the information changed that relationship.

I really think what the google technology does, and what the research libraries agreed to when they chose to work with google four years ago to find an “economical” way to digitize their collections, is create a private market version of “public lending right.”

See you on Day 33.

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