Paying by the Word
The simple, inexpensive “fair use” copyright system under which the printed word has thrived is now in grave peril, Lawrence Lessig writes in The New Republic. He says the recent Google digital-copying settlement portends expense and legal hassles like those that stifle documentary filmmakers who depend on archival footage:
The deal constructs a world in which control can be exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote. It is a world in which every bit, every published word, could be licensed. ...We begin to sell access to knowledge the way we sell access to a movie theater, or a candy store, or a baseball stadium. We create not digital libraries, but digital bookstores: a Barnes & Noble without the Starbucks. ... Before we release a gaggle of lawyers to police every quotation appearing in any book, can we stop for a moment to consider whether this way of organizing access to culture makes sense?
Digital rights and copyright are going to be one of the bugaboos in our future,