> > In the US, the UK, and doubtless many other jurisdictions, this is
> > completely wrong. The _law_ defines what is fair use, not the content
> > provider.
> >
> The law may well determine limits on what is fair use, but surely it doesn't
> go so far as to specify all of the details of, e.g. license agreements for
> software, and it can not mandate that an author make his work available for
> free. All I am suggesting here is that if an author wants the best
> copyright protection I can provide, then he can have it,
You are providing copy protection, not copyright protection. Copyright
protection is the legal position which states what people are not allowed
to do with what you have created. Copy protection is a method used by
content authors to make it harder for people to violate copyright.
However, it is probably technically illegal for them to do so in a way
which conflicts with the fair use provisions of the country they are
operating in.
If you make your work available and copyright it (as happens automatically
when you make it available) then people are allowed to use it under "fair
use". You can't stop them (well, not legally.) And to try and stop them
technologically is very wrong (see the DVD case.)
> > In books, you have the "first sale" doctrine. After I pay for a book, I
> > can do what I like with it - keep it, give it away, burn it. Surely after
> > a user has paid for your content, they should (again, in analogy with
> > books) be allowed to do what they like with one copy of it, as long as
> > they don't break copyright law by reproducing it.
> >
> You also have libraries. Any univeresity library I have used has had
> external readers who pay an annual fee for borrowing priviledges. In this
> model, you pay a fee for access to the material, but the material never
> becomes your property.
No, the _book_ never becomes your property. Even if you borrow a book from
a library you are still allowed to copy bits, quote bits and do other
things with bits for the purposes of study, review, comparison and all the
other fair use clauses.
Your library analogy does not hold up because in your model, users are not
allowed to take books out of the library, or use the photocopier.
> So the question remais, not is it useful to extend the DOM, but "Can it be
> done?"
It's just ones and zeroes. It can do anything you want it to do :-)
Gerv
