The following paired passages discuss the confusion and controversy surrounding copyright law.
Passage A
Understanding copyright law is a little like wandering in a maze and hoping that you find the right outlet. As of 1976, the basic copyright law (and there are many (5) qualifications and exceptions) is that an original wor k is the property of the author from the time of its creation to 70 years after the author’s death, at which time it becomes part of the public domain and may be used by others. (10) For over two hundred years, copyright has protected intellectual property from unauthorized use. This encourages creators because it ensures that they control the use of their works and the profits that may (15) accrue from those works.
Then came the Internet. Is it a whole new ball game? Some people believe that anything on the Internet is in the public domain. Not true. Congress passed the (20) Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, and this act set standards for protecting software, written works, and music on the Internet. It also made illegal any technology used to break copyright-protection (25) devices. (One provision of the act, however, exempts Internet service providers— America Online and Earthlink are just two examples—from lawsuits based on copyright violations that occur on their networks.)
(30) Copyright protection of material on the Internet hasn’t been completely successful. For example, book publishers complained that professors cost their industry at least $20 million a year by posting long excerpts (35) of texts on the Internet, making material free to students rather than having them buy textbooks. Cornell University was the first school to respond to textbook publishers by agreeing that legal guidelines for copyright (40) should apply to Web use. But faculty members from some schools complain that this restricts the free flow of ideas. Publishers, on the other hand, say that they must protect $3.35 billion in college textbook sales.
(45) Copyright protection on the Internet is justified. The Internet is an impressive tool for distributing ideas, publications, music, art, and so on. But should it allow stealing? Instead, copyright laws should protect (50) intellectual property wherever it is published and distributed. These laws encourage creative thinkers, and creative thinkers help drive the United States economy. If intellectual property is protected, the Internet’s commercial (55) possibilities will be fully realized.
Passage B
The idea that the Internet should be sub- ject to increasingly rigid copyright laws is a bad one. It’s true that not having copyright apply to the Internet means less profit for (60) some including entities such as the motion picture and recording industries, who lob- bied furiously for new copyright legislation in 1998. But the profit motive shouldn’t be the sole consideration.
(65) The world is a different place in the twenty-first century. Accessibility and instant communication are the attributes that make the Internet such a powerful new force, and we shouldn’t interfere with this means of (70) passing information, ideas, movies, art, and music from person to person around the world. Traditional barriers such as copyright laws don’t belong. If copyright laws are strictly enforced on the Internet—and it is (75) doubtful whether they even can be we could end up being unable to send a copy of our favorite poem or short story to a friend without risking a lawsuit.
(80) What about the concept of “fair use,” which is part of the existing copyright laws? “Fair use” is meant to protect the financial stake of creators and publishers while allowing a limited use of material for primarily educational or artistic purposes, as for example, (85) when reviewers quote passages from works they review. Unfortunately, according to Kenneth D. Crews, a law professor at Indiana University and director of its Copyright Management Center, fair use is an (90) “inherently flexible doctrine. It can be interpreted differently by different courts under the same circumstances.” Copyright law doesn’t state where fair use ends and where copyright infringement begins. It isn’t hard to (95) imagine an endless stream of lawsuits.
Recently the Australian government announced that it was planning to update their copyright law to keep up with the changing digital landscape. The head of public (100) policy at Google, the giant Internet search engine, took issue with the proposed changes. If proposed new Australian copyright laws were to be adopted, Google warned, copyright owners could take action (105) against search engines for caching and archiving material. This would “condemn the Australian public to the pre-Internet era.” “Given the vast size of the Internet it is impossible for a search engine to contact (110) personally each owner of a web page to determine whether the owner desires its web page to be searched, indexed or cached,” Google wrote in its submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
(115) Google’s point about the proposed Australian update illustrates only one of many problems with stricter copyright laws on the Internet. Exclusive ownership of intellectual property is inimical to the (120) Internet.
Questions 7 to 13
- The authors of Passage A and Passage B would most likely agree with which of the following statements?