Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
10.4
Legal Matters and Controversy
When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part,
that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
English theologian, leader of the Oxford Movement, and Cardinal
— from Oxford University Sermons (1843)
What Is Copyright?
The term “copyright” refers to the legal right to exclusive distribution, pro-
duction, and publication for the owner of any original product. Typically, this
right is granted by a government to an originator of work, to distribute, produce,
publish, or sell the work (subject to certain caveats). It is not always necessary
to seek out explicit copyright protection by applying to a government agency,
say. For instance, a photographer is automatically granted copyright world-
wide, to a photograph via the ownership of the negative (or digital original) of
a picture taken.
In our digital world, the issue of “electronic rights” has arisen in addition to
the older notion of copyright. In fact, some courts in various countries have ruled
that the older notions of copyright did not contemplate electronic databases, so
they are not included in the old laws. Several lawsuits pertaining to this issue
have tested the new limits of copyright laws, which are now expanding to address
these modern bones of contention.
The inception of the e-book 10.32 has given publishers pause since some au-
thors have made digital representations of their works available online, putting
them in direct conflict with their own publishers. Most lawsuits in this regard
have been in favour of the publisher, since new copyright law tends to extend
to include the e-book that is based on an existing print topic. Many expect
that all of the print versions will eventually be converted to digital form. How-
ever, copyright laws may interfere with that expectation since the permission
of the copyright holder is required to do this. For the older topics, the authors
may be dead, in which case the copyright passes to the heirs, or the publisher,
sometimes as a condition of publication, or even, in the case of many academic
publications, to the scholarly journal in which it appeared. In the latter case,
this has facilitated the online project called JUSTOR, Journal Storage , which
is a scholarly journal archive. It is converting back issues of masses of runs of
10.32 An e-book is a digital version of a topic, which might be a literal translation of a printed
topic, created by say, scanning; or it might be created strictly in digital form to be read by an
e-book reader , which is software that runs on a PC or a hand-held device, for the purpose of
downloading and displaying topic products. An example is the Adobe Acrobat e-book reader ,
or the Rocket e-book . The latter is a hand-held device about the size of a paperback novel,
weighing twenty-two ounces, operates on batteries that last about twenty or so hours, and
holds about the equivalent of ten novels. It is updatable, has high-resolution liquid crystal
display, and can be recharged as well as connected to a PC via a serial connection (see Footnote
10.33 on page 412). If portable e-books are successful, then the Rocket e-book may be the
template for their design.
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