Guest c4evap Posted February 6, 2006 Share Posted February 6, 2006 Libraries have warned that the rise of digital publishing may make it harder or even impossible to access items in their collections in the future. Many publishers put restrictions on how digital books and journals can be used. Such digital rights management (DRM) controls may block some legitimate uses, the British Library has said. And there are fears that restricted works may not be safe for future generations if people can no longer unlock them when technology evolves. The British Library spends £2m of its £16m annual acquisitions budget on digital material, mainly reference books and journals. But by 2020, 90% of newly published work will be available digitally - twice the amount that is printed - according to British Library predictions published last year. Libraries are allowed to give access to, copy and distribute items through "fair dealing" and "library privilege" clauses in copyright law. But as publishers attempt to stop the public illegally sharing books and articles, the DRM they employ may not cater for libraries' legal uses. "We have genuinely tried to maintain that balance between the public interest and respecting rights holders," Dr Clive Field, the British Library's director of scholarships and collections told the BBC News website. "We are genuinely concerned that technology inadvertently may be disturbing that balance, and that would be unhelpful ultimately to the national interest." The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group is conducting an inquiry into DRM. In written evidence, the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (Laca) said there were "widespread concerns in the library, archive and information community" about the potentially harmful effects of DRMs. "We have grave concerns about the potential use of DRMs by rightholders to override existing copyright exceptions," its statement said. In the long term, the restrictions would not expire when a work went out of copyright, it said, and it may be impossible to trace the rights holders by that time. "It is probable that no key would still exist to unlock the DRMs," Laca said. "For libraries this is serious. Threaten "As custodians of human memory, a number would keep digital works in perpetuity and may need to be able to transfer them to other formats in order to preserve them and make the content fully accessible and usable once out of copyright." In its written submission to the group, the British Library said DRM must not "exert excessive control on access to information". "This will fundamentally threaten the longstanding and accepted concepts of fair dealing and library privilege and undermine, or even prevent, legitimate public good access." Fair dealing and library privilege must be "re-interpreted and sustained for the digital age", it added. Dr Field said: "This is going to be one of the significant challenges for us over the next few years." Thanks Microsoft! Thanks for DRM! COSSACKS! Here in the states we have a TV news channel called MSNBC (guess what the MS stands for). How long before we see MSUSA? I swear...I believe they want to control everything! Thoughts? Comments? c4 :stare: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
str82u Posted February 6, 2006 Share Posted February 6, 2006 I would like to buy a t-shirt for that. Actually, that is kinda screwed up for people who, unlike us, don't know how to access ANYTHING from the web. Kids need that stuff for school too, the ones who don't have PCs at home. Our school here (JR& SR High) REQUIRE homework to be either printed or emailed to teachers. My step son actually failed a project because he labled insects with handwritten slips (I kid you not). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StitchInTime Posted February 6, 2006 Share Posted February 6, 2006 The gap between the haves and the have nots continues to increase. :rolleyes: It's terribly ironic that technology, which is meant to improve people's lives, is actually increasing the great divide, not because of technology, but because of ridiculous policies, such as the above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest c4evap Posted February 7, 2006 Share Posted February 7, 2006 The gap between the haves and the have nots continues to increase. :rolleyes: It's terribly ironic that technology, which is meant to improve people's lives, is actually increasing the great divide, not because of technology, but because of ridiculous policies, such as the above. Yeah. I don't think MS is interested in helping the masses as much as making the almighty dollar (yen, ruppel, peso, etc). Look at all their patent fights and how they try to kill competition. c4 :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mav Posted February 7, 2006 Share Posted February 7, 2006 Despite what people think with DRM and such, that would never happen. Especially in the UK. Last I checked, most of Europe was still going after Microsoft for it's business practicies (wish I could be more clear but my rememberance of the articles in question are quite vague). There's always going to be some risk involved if a library allows a digital piece of work to be say, checked out for home usage like a book. At the same time DRMing it up the wahzoo would obviously just hurt the end user and library which as said, would just never happen. It's like saying, the current library system needs home security guards. Every time you check out a book with your own personal library card & account, a guard also goes home with you. This guard stands watch 24/7 to make sure the book or materials you checked out are only viewed by YOU the card holder and not anyone else. In other words, it will never happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheWind Posted February 7, 2006 Share Posted February 7, 2006 Drm is as of the moment, the future that expect us, while it's true that some gov's are after microsoft, it's just make belive: if you don't enforcec your sentences & laws in time is useless, and defeats it's purpouse. Btw , DRM is not about protecting rights, it's about controlling legitimate users, if you get a pirate version of a drm file, it has the drm removed so you're unaffected by its restrictions, but the guy that boughts it, it's at the mercy of the company, can see it's license revoked withouot warning, makes an obligation to have internet access so licensing conditions can be cheked from time to time, and in the event of the company being out of bussines he losses it's license... DRM is just digital fascism, you can't protect any rights by removing or limiting others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest c4evap Posted February 7, 2006 Share Posted February 7, 2006 SNIPPET: ... DRM is just digital fascism, you can't protect any rights by removing or limiting others. Here, here. Well said! c4 :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbbb Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Why put restrictions on a PDF? Seriously it's like putting restrictions on Word documents or txt documents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest c4evap Posted February 22, 2006 Share Posted February 22, 2006 Why put restrictions on a PDF? Seriously it's like putting restrictions on Word documents or txt documents. Why is that? Would you care to share your reasoning with us? c4 :thinking: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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