Many librarians see copyright as the element that will provide the way out of their budget problems.
Many publishers see it as essential to maintaining sales of their publications.
There has been much discussion in the last two years about what copyright is designed for, why it exists, and what power each side believes it gives to the other side. Neither side is without its bias, and very little in the way of compromise has been offered. As a non-lawyer, it is impossible for me to comment on the legal technicalities of copyright law. But it is important to discuss the practicalities of current copyright policies and hypothesize how the system might change if the new policies being discussed now became reality. The changes being proposed are intended to shift control of dissemination of published materials from publishers to either authors or their universities, and the assumption is that the result would be an improvement.