"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Licensing, Fair Use, and Copyright.

In June of 2009Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library, discontinued a short-lived pilot project wherein the library provided inter-library loan services to faculty using Amazon's Kindle. Roger Layton, communications manager for the library said.

"We are pretty fast on the interlibrary loans, but it still takes days....With the Kindle, we can have a new book available for someone in a matter of minutes.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705310939/BYU-suspends-Kindle-program-over-legal-concerns.html

while this incident caused a bit of a stir in the library community it could have quietly faded into obscurity if Amazon had left well enough alone. Instead around July 14th of this year Amazon "began e-mailing a few hundred owners of its Kindle reading device to explain that it had deleted electronic copies of the George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "1984" and had refunded the $0.99 purchase price." according to a recent article posted at Information Week's website. http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501227

Until now many saw no significant difference between purchasing copyrighted material and purchasing a license to use copyrighted material, despite the fact that almost every piece of software we use or "purchase" has for years been made available under a license agreement. People who bought a Kindle became painfully aware of the difference between buying a book and paying for a license to use a book.

Well So What?

Why should we care? Amazon gave refunds for the EBooks and said they "will no longer delete books in this manner." (Read apolofy from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos) Amazon and other corporations may have the best interest of their customers at heart for the moment there is no guarantee that this will last. By lisenceing access to digital versions of a book or magazine, companies can circumvent or even eliminate consumers' rights of "fair use" and "first sale." The Kindle manual states "Digital content will be deemed licensed to you under this Agreement". The manual also states that "Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right." (Amazon Kindle: Liscence Agreement and Terms of Use)So they can take back any EBook at anytime without any liability. Would this agreement stand up in court, or in the marketplace? It is hard to say, but the same types of licensing agreements have stood up in court for years in regards to software and End-User Liscense Agreements or EULAs. It is becoming an increasing concern in regards to music and movies purchased and managed by Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. (see the Computer & Communications Industry Association web site on defending fair use http://www.defendfairuse.org/index.html)

If this was just about Amazon and the Kindle then there would be no problem, people could just stop buying Kindles if they didn't like the licensing agreement. However, it is not just about Amazon. How much of our reading, research, watching movies, and listening to music do we do online or with our computers? If a company could license our access to all or most of our information, they could control, or at least exert an unprecideneted influence over what we could and could not read, hear or see through a EULA.

Google's Terms of Service
Your relationship with Google

• Whenever you use our services it’s under the terms of a legal contract with Google.
• This contract is made up of the Terms of Use and the Legal Notices for the services you’re using.
• We will make any additional Legal Notices available to you when you sign up for the service concerned so you’ll know they apply.
• If you misbehave, we may terminate our agreement with you. This might result in your access to some or all of our services being disabled. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
• We may also decide to stop providing services to you. While we don’t plan to discontinue any service, we reserve the right to.
• You can terminate your agreement with us at any time by closing your account for the services you use. We’ll be sorry to see you go, but you can come back anytime!....

About Google’s services

• We are constantly changing and improving our services. If you’re scared of change, this isn’t the place for you....

http://www.google.com/accounts/tos/highlights/utos-us-en-h.html

Fair use and copyright law does not appear to apply in regards to the Kindle, Google, Google Scholar, Google Books, or almost any information accessed with a computer. Think about how much of your work, study, entertainment, and research you do through the use of Google, or any computer software (including operating systems). What would happen if Google, Apple, or Microsoft decided to "terminate our agreement with you. This might result in your access to some or all of our services being disabled...." "We may also decide to stop providing services to you. While we don’t plan to discontinue any service, we reserve the right to."

Now it all of a sudden is not about whether you want to buy a Kindle, its about your access to almost any information that at some time may be stored on a computer. While Google's current corporate philosophy includes the idea of "do no evil" is comforting, it could easily change."We are constantly changing and improving our services. If you’re scared of change, this isn’t the place for you...." Google's definition of "evil" is suddenly relevant to almost everyone whose life is touched by a computer. http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

Is the sky falling?

No, but you might want to think about licensing the use of an umbrella.

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology

RIS Recommends: The Color of Money: Fair Use and Copyright or: Free the Bound Periodicals!