That may convince them that imprisoning information in a statute of ever greater term and restriction does not serve the needs of scholarship or science and useful arts. We librarians can also seek broader educational exemptions from the most harsh restraints and controls on the use of information. We can be far more demanding about negotiating licenses that increase our rights of access, while agreeing to try to help protect the legitimate rights of authors and publishers. Certainly we can and will aid and abet the progress of information technology to gain access to information. Finally, we can also reassure our adversaries in this complex struggle that there really is very little evidence that copyright is what protects publisher profits.
Librarians know that book borrowers and copiers are book buyers.
On the other hand, there is compelling evidence that free access to information makes everything in our society work better. Go to Editorial archive. LJ Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.