Managing Digital Rights
lise foster · eLucidate · 2005
With the new blanket digitisation licence coming into force soon and digital rights the current hot topic among information professionals, a handy guide is timely.This book sets out to be a practical guide to the use of digital content and the issues that arise when you start scanning print resources then storing and using your digitised files.Edited by Paul Pedley, the guide is organised in five short but practical sections.Each contributor has a different viewpoint and with Ian Watson, we even get a rare view from a professional on the publisher's side of the fence. Legal backgroundNo work in the field is complete without a contribution from Paul Pedley and he starts off by laying out the legal landscape.This short but very relevant and clearly written section describes how the digital format raises different issues from print, what is meant by the term "digital rights management" (DRM) and the common contractual forms, restrictions and protections encountered.After defining copyright, he explains why copyright law is in itself no longer adequate in the face of new technologies and the resulting new opportunities for librarians and for rights holders.The handy analogy of a book is useful here -once you have bought your copy, you can consult it as often as you like without paying extra, but if you sell or give it away those rights move on the next owner.Not so in the digital world, where you are only leasing that content for a fixed period of time.This gives huge opportunities for publishers to monitor and restrict usage, which they didn't have before, and also for others to replicate and distribute infringing copies -witness the growth and popularity of Kazaa and similar networks.There is a short section on negotiating licences with some model agreements which highlight how important it is to be sure of what you're signing -it's all too true that however complicated the language of the contract or unfair the terms may seem to be, there is very little legal recourse for the librarian who did not read or fully understand what they were signing.