info NeoGnostic: e-Book copyright in the UK

: Name: Chris Armstrong; Location: Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom

I am the owner and managing director of Information Automation Limited (IAL), a company that specialises in research, consultancy and training for the information profession. We are particularly interested in all forms of electronic information resources (e-journals, e-books, etc) and I teach a course in electronic publishing at the Department of Information Studies in Aberystwyth. Drilling down still further(!), my interests centre on the quality and evaluation of electronic information, and in the thinking that underpins activities in library and information science.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

e-Book copyright in the UK

CILIP members will already be aware from the CILIP LIS in Politics blog that - in response to a supplementary question from Tony Baldry on the protection of copyright in relation to e-books, and on piracy - Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Andy Burnham said that with respect to e-books:

there was a genuine issue with the illegal sharing of material online that had caused particular damage to the music industry. The first step would be voluntary agreements, he explained. Furthermore, he noted that he had been disappointed by the response of the ISPs

He ended by noting that:

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that jointly with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, we will shortly publish a document that includes options for legislation if voluntary agreements cannot be secured.

There is clearly a view that ISPs have responsibility for illegal downloading - one wonders if the government believes that ISPs have responsibility for illegal copying as well. As a timely instance, only today a colleague purchased and downloaded two e-books, only to discover that the PDF files were completely unprotected, and could easily have been shared around the office (he didn't!) or, indeed the world.

>>Technorati tags: copyright; ebooks