Paper 1: What rights do content purchasers have?
Due: Feb 20, 2002 (friday, feb 22 is fine)
2-4 pages
Specifically, when someone purchases (or otherwise accesses) a copyrighted
work, what if any rights should that person have? One approach is that the
copyright owner holds all rights, and “licenses” to the
user just what they want to. If you wish, you may argue that point, preferably
addressing some of the issues below. Traditionally, however, copyright law
is considered to involve a balance between the rights of copyright owners
and users; the best-known such right of users is that copyrights eventually
expire.
In your arguments, try to distinguish between justifications based on fundamental
principle (eg ownership is considered inalienable), and justifications based
on the common good (eg that rights should at some point expire, because the
original creator has long since died).
Here are some possible rights to consider. Some are specific to copyright;
some might apply to any purchase agreement. You do not have to address
all of them.
- fair use rights (to quote “briefly”, and
related rights)
- The right to know the license terms in advance (is it
a shrinkwrap license?)
- The right for the license to be free of unusual provisions.
- The right to make a backup copy
- The right to resell your purchased copy
- The right to rent your purchased copy
- The right to transfer to another medium, eg CD to cassette,
or DVD to VHS.
The following deal with rights where you need some kind of
player software to listen/view:
The right to view using your own software, versus software
bundled with by the seller
- If you must use their software, is it allowed to
- install an annoying virus ad?
- access any of your private files?
- disable competing software?
- The right to "fast forward" past advertising
- The right to listen/view with no time constraints
- The right to listen/view with no geographical constraints
(eg embedded “region codes” honored by some DVD players)
- The right to listen/view without that fact being disclosed
to any third parties (some proposed content protection systems require that
each time you listen/watch/read, you must connect to the Internet and have
your license verified dynamically).
- The right, if an online license verification system is
employed, for access records not to be kept, or shared with others.