Jessica,
I was more saying I understood where they were coming from. In a time of budget 
cutting it is hard to justify a whole new world of annual subscriptions to 
older materials.
Of course fighting this case will cost more than $925, even $925/year in 
perpetuity <grin>.
I also looked at the request to dismiss the case, and it struck me as a layman 
that there was a lot of legal tapdancing going on there.  So I agree on that 
point, though it is interesting to see what comes up. As you say, the Ambrose 
aspect is interesting because they do offer what looks like a good model for 
institutional streaming, though also because of their longtime insistence on 
the purchase of institutional rights to their hard media.

Re doing this to books, remember the Kinko's case.  Professors DID Xerox whole 
books, whole articles, etc. (my course packet once contained an entire play in 
translation, most of a book that was out of print).  Professors tend to be 
ruthless about the use of materials that they want to teach. If something will 
get the point across, or on the other hand is worth discussing, they want to 
use it.

Their ruthlessness perhaps has to do with the fact that most professors make 
$0.00 royalties on their publications. Unless the book is a textbook, it will 
not make money, and the press involved may require a subvention from the author 
even if the work is peer-reviewed and the press is respectable. Scholarly 
presses tend not to make money, either-if a title sells well, it allows them to 
print a book that will not sell so well but that they think is important.  So 
the knowledge that if someone steals my  book I will lose nothing at all may 
make me (not me, Judy, but "me" the wicked professor) more cavalier about the 
rights of others.

Judy



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