But few have mentioned the crushing impact this decision could have on the widespread and easy access to information we now take for granted.
Consider this scenario in the digital library of the future. Your patron has requested an article that appeared in a popular magazine or newspaper. You search quickly and verify the citation, but the full text is nowhere to be found. Nothing, nada, nowhere at all--only the citation and a very brief abstract is online--anywhere, even on the magazine's own Web site.
This nightmare could become a familiar occurrence if the September 1999 decision in Tasini versus The New York Times, et al. is strictly interpreted and upheld. Most discussion surrounding the decision has focused on freelance authors' rights and the court's ruling that publishers must obtain specific electronic as well as first-publication rights for articles written by freelance authors. The ruling has generally been hailed as a victory for authors--and a headache for publishers and database producers. But few have mentioned the crushing impact this decision could have on the widespread and easy access to information that we now take for granted.
Goodbye, Full-Text Databases
Imagine the chaos! One item on a discussion list suggested that authors might even negotiate separate rights for electronic publication on Dialog, LEXIS-NEXIS, Dow Jones (oops, Factiva), and so on--disregarding the fact that often those services carry the same databases. What does the Gale Group do? And does Bell & Howell Information & Learning negotiate separately with an author to obtain permission to put the article on ProQuest, but not on Northern Light? Not likely.
More to the point, what about the millions of articles online in full text that date back to the 1970s and 1980s, and are not covered by explicit author agreements? No longer would databases contain publications cover-to-cover in full text. Only selected articles would be available online--and comprehensive searches of full-text files would be a thing of the past, since you can't search what isn't there.
Strict interpretation of Tasini says that publishers and database producers will have to remove thousands, if not millions, of full-text articles to be in compliance with authors' rights. Goodbye, Trade & Industry Database, so long, PROMT, and forget using Business & Industry Database, along with dozens of our favorite files--not that the files will cease to exist--it's just that you won't be able to count on finding the article you wanted since it may, or may not be, online. Producing Full Text Sources Online, the bible for full-text searchers, will become an impossible task. What's online full text and where? It depends on publishers' contracts, which may vary from author to author and article to article.
Authors' Residuals
What the Tasini decision comes down to is authors being paid for additional uses or views of their work after it is in electronic format. Database producers pay publishers for online usage of their articles, and it is this perceived "pot of gold" that has authors seeing dollar signs in the residual use of their work. Yet, few database producers report royalty payments to publishers by article and author, making it impossible for publishers to pass a fair share along to authors.
It remains to be seen whether authors, publishers, database producers, and online aggregators meet the demands of the Tasini decision and its supporters--and whether the requisite systemic change occurs. The issues are vastly more complex than this short Editorial portrays, but as the dialog continues, I hope that information professionals think beyond the immediate issue of digital rights. Our challenge is to consider how to reconcile authors' rights with the need for continued access to the information that is our stock in trade.
(The full text of the ruling is at http://www.tourolaw.edu/2ndCircuit/September99/97-9181.html.Writers' views are represented in documents at the National Writers' Union Website at http://www.nwu.org/nwutoc.htm.)
THE DEPARTURE. Our travellers were not obliged to bargain for their conveyance, as they went ashore in the boat belonging to the hotel where they intended to stay. The runner of the hotel took charge of their baggage and placed it in the boat; and when all was ready, they shook hands with the captain and purser of the steamer, and wished them prosperous voyages in future. Several other passengers went ashore at the same time. Among them was Captain Spofford, who was anxious to compare the Yokohama of to-day with the one he had visited twenty years before. "Tell me," said the Doctor, without moving a muscle in his face, "was she satisfied with her tour of my premises?" The Doctor stabbed a finger wildly in the direction of the coal cellar. "If you had seen what I have seen to-night, you would understand. You would be feeling exactly as I am now." Meanwhile Balmayne had crept in downstairs. He crossed over and helped himself liberally to brandy. He took a second glass, and a third. But there came none of the glow of courage to his heart. There was nothing in the kitchen, but there were some boxes in the storeroom beyond--a tin or two of sardines and some biscuits. Also in a wine cellar Leona found a flask or two of Chianti. "A glass of beer, madame." Outside Cherath a motor-car stood between some partially removed trees. Two officers and three soldiers stood around a map which they had laid on the ground, and with them was a young girl, scarcely twenty years old. She was weeping, and pointed out something on the map, obviously compelled to give information. One of the officers stopped me, was clearly quite satisfied with my papers, but told me that I was not allowed to go on without a permit from the military command. Then I pulled out of my pocket, as if of great importance, the scrap of paper which the commanding officer at the bridge near Lixhe had given me. The other had scarcely seen the German letters and German stamp when he nodded his head approvingly, and quickly I put the thing back, so that he might not notice that I was allowed only to go to Visé. The critical tendency just alluded to suggests one more reason why philosophy, from having been a method of discovery, should at last become a mere method of description and arrangement. The materials accumulated by nearly three centuries of observation and reasoning were so enormous that they began to stifle the imaginative faculty. If there was any opening for originality it lay in the task of carrying order into this chaos by reducing it to a few general heads, by mapping out the whole field of knowledge, and subjecting each particular branch to the new-found processes of definition325 and classification. And along with the incapacity for framing new theories there arose a desire to diminish the number of those already existing, to frame, if possible, a system which should select and combine whatever was good in any or all of them. On a square, shaded by an awning, with porticoes all round, coolies in white dresses sat on the ground making up little bunches of flowers, the blossoms without stems tied close to a pliant cane for garlands—jasmine, roses, chrysanthemums, and sweet basil—for in India, as in Byzantium of old, basil is the flower of kings and gods. The basil's fresh scent overpowered the smell of sandal-wood and incense which had gradually soaked into me in the presence of the idols, and cleared the atmosphere delightfully. A woman rolled up in pale-tinted muslins under the warm halo of light falling through the[Pg 80] awning, was helping one of the florists. She supported on her arm a long garland of jasmine alternating with balls of roses. 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At Cornhill, indeed, the meretricious adornments of art were superseded for a brief space by the simple beauty of nature, and the eye felt a momentary relief in resting on the green grass, and the few shaded trees that covered the open ground. But this green spot was succeeded by a dense mass of dwellings covered with hangings of a richness suitable to the reputed wealth of the city merchants; here the scene was animated in the extreme,—the motions of the crowd became unsteady and irregular, as they were actuated at once by eagerness to hurry on, and a desire to linger among the rainbow diversity of hues around them, and the glowing beauty which, arrayed with costly elegance, and smiling with anticipated enjoyment, graced every open window. HoME大香蕉群交之肛交视频在线
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