David Collier-Brown, a published author with O'Reilly, posts his copyright consultation submission. Collier-Brown notes that the electronic availability of his book helped make it the outstanding seller in his class and warns that anti-circumvention legislation would harm him as an author.
Collier-Brown on Copyright Reform
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Finally…
A comment from a content producer. Most of the stuff that I’ve seen to date on this is from publishers and lobbyists for special interest groups. While not his specific book, I’ve used O’Reilly reference books in the past; they tend to be invaluable works. Having been able to find one of them on the Internet, at the O’Reilly site, led me to purchase the book as I find that paper copies are more useful while working.
One thing that I like about his the submission is the experience with the DMCA and fraudulent claims of copyright infringement by a publisher against the actual copyright holder, in an effort to force customers to access the work through the publisher. Should a notice-and-takedown, or a “three strikes” type clause be introduced into the Canadian law, it needs to be balanced by severe penalties for abuse of those clauses (for instance, graduated fines, starting at $500K for the first infraction and doubling with each infraction, no upper limit… an infraction being a claim against an individual on a single work… so a fraudulent claim on 3 works would be levied a fine of $3.5 million, on 4 $7.5 million, etc).
Very interesting recommendations
His thoughts on orphan works deserve serious consideration. Something is broken when you cannot get an out-of-print book for hide nor hair.
Of course, in the brave new world of Google Books, what it means to be published might need revisiting.
I should have mentioned Google …
.. .but I was afraid I was going to get too far
off-topic.
–dave
I should have mentioned Google …
.. .but I was afraid I was going to get too far
off-topic.
–dave