Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman, Prometheus, $25, ISBN
1573928895
THE digital era has already changed copyright law forever, says Jessica
Litman, in Digital Copyright.
Traditionally, in the US at least, the law has given personal and
non-commercial users free access to copyright material. Now rights holders are
demanding that every use be potentially chargeable, even the copy made briefly
in your computer’s memory when you read a Web page.
They have backed up their position with a wave of copy protection
technologies and lawsuits, the most recent of which resulted in a ruling against
the music-sharing service Napster.
Litman, a…
