Why Does the U.S. Copyright Office Require Libraries to Lie to Users about Their Fair Use Rights? They Won’t Say.; The Scholarly Kitchen, July 5, 2023

RICK ANDERSON, The Scholarly Kitchen; Why Does the U.S. Copyright Office Require Libraries to Lie to Users about Their Fair Use Rights? They Won’t Say.

"Let’s be clear about what the problem is here. It’s not that patrons who use library-provided copies of copyrighted works in a manner beyond the scope of “private study, scholarship, or research” are in legal danger if their use falls within the full range of the fair use provisions in section 107. Again, the language of section 108 makes it very clear that owners of such copies are entirely within their rights to make full (fair) use of them, regardless of what the copyright warning notice prescribed by the Copyright Office says. The problem is that the Copyright Office, under color of authority ostensibly assigned to it by statute, requires libraries to misinform patrons about their rights. Although library patrons are in reality free to make full fair use of copies we provide them (or copies they make on our premises), we must tell them – every time they make or request a copy from us – that they have only a small subset of those rights.

How much does this disinformation end up constraining patrons’ exercise of their full rights under the law? It’s impossible to know, of course. But as a profession that sees itself at the vanguard of the fight against both mis- and disinformation, it certainly should rankle us that we’ve been drafted into a disinformation campaign that affects so many information seekers so directly.

It should rankle us even more that the U.S. Copyright Office, the very entity that has created this issue and is uniquely empowered to fix it, seems to have no interest in doing so. I hope my library colleagues (and everyone else who cares about libraries and archives, and about fair use) will join me in calling on the Copyright Office to change the language of its prescribed copyright warning notice, bringing it into full conformity with what the law actually says. (I’ve created an online petition for this purpose, and encourage all interested to sign it.)"

Yes, the News Can Survive the Newspaper; New York Times, 9/4/16

Jim Rutenberg, New York Times; Yes, the News Can Survive the Newspaper:

"In this case, as the ad dollars that have long financed journalism vaporize into the electronic ether, you don’t know with any certainty that the best services that newspapers have provided — holding public officials to account, rooting out corruption — will live on.

If anything, today’s “efficiencies” may even set readers back by pumping out lowest-common-denominator nonsense or, at worst, disinformation.

Just look at what happened last week after that Goliath of the digital transformation, Facebook, pared back the team of “curators” and copy editors who oversaw the selection process for its “Trending Topics” feed. Instead, it gave more control over to an algorithm...

The Facebook experience wasn’t all that far off from the doomsday scenario John Oliver recently envisioned on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.”...

Know-nothing press haters may say that news organizations are going out of business because the public is shunning them, but that’s not the case at all. Through online exposure, newspapers are reaching more people than ever. The problem is how they make money. Circulation for physical newspapers is declining, and so is print advertising; digital ads remain far less profitable. The trick is finding a way to make up the lost revenue."