Blog Assignment #6, 6/22

The readings for this week focused on issues related to both privacy and copyright issues.

The Vaidhyanathan article examined Google's attempts to create an electronic library by scanning the collections of several academic libraries and giving a scanned copy back to the library as a form of payment. This raised major issues with copyright law; the author feared that in the long run, whether Google itself survived copyright infringement challenges, it would expose the potential weakness of current copyright laws, created in an age of print, to the issues of electronic information; the danger that this would lead to a radical restructuring of copyright law, to the detriment of users, is probably greater than the benefit of Google's project. He also pointed out that Google's Fair Use argument - that users would only see a small portion of any given text, which would encourage, rather than deter, them, from purchasing it, was irrelevant; they would still possess (and distribute) full copies; just as they have entire webpages cached, even if most users don't see this.

The Coombs article focused on issues of privacy, especially for library patrons. This became an issue after 9/11 and the passage of the PATRIOT ACT; previously, user data was at risk from individuals, but now the government might seek to obtain it. It is thus necessary not only to erase, rather than cache, certain user information (such as books checked out and websites visited) but to unlink data that is kept from individual data; eg, not to keep user's social security numbers on file, or not to associate user names with collection data, even if other demographic information is being kept on it.

Both articles raised questions about the future of electronic collections. For example, given the rise in popularity of e-readers, is it inevitable that books in the future will be published primarily electronically? If so, what can be done to prevent copyright violations (especially given that it is much easier to make illegal copies of an electronic document)?