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                Date: 1998-10-31
                 
                 
                Projekt Gutenberg bedroht
                
                 
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      Die neuen US-Copyrightgesetze lösten zu Hollywood lauten  
Jubel aus. Mit blankem Entsetzen haben die Betreiber des  
Projekts Gutenberg und anderer freier Weltbibliotheken  
reagiert. Audio- & Videocaster müssen weit höhere Gebühren  
abführen, als Kabel, Tv & Radio.   
 
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Adam Clayton Powell 
10.30.98 The two-day-old U.S. copyright law, originally  
presented as an anti-piracy measure, is imposing  
unanticipated new restrictions on journalists, broadcasters  
and librarians. 
 
President Clinton signed the new Copyright Act into law  
Wednesday. It was the culmination of months of hard  
lobbying by the major Hollywood studios to increase charges  
for use of copyrighted material online. But the true price of  
the new law, both in new mandatory financial payments and  
in restrictions on the free flow of news and information, is  
only now becoming clear. 
 
The burgeoning use of audio and video over the Internet will  
be hit hard by new mandatory fees far higher than those paid  
by cable or over-the-air broadcasters. Some content now  
routine on all-news radio stations and such television  
services as CNN and MSNBC could now be illegal on the  
Internet. 
.... 
For example, the recording industry can now restrict the  
choice of music anyone can play over the Internet, by setting  
ceilings on the number of times certain songs can be played.  
No such controls now exist on broadcast or cable television  
or radio. 
.... 
The new law is having a chilling effect on the free flow of  
printed information: Educational Web sites can now be  
prosecuted for distributing information online that has until  
now been freely available at public libraries and on library  
Web sites. 
 
One Web site devoted to classic literature, Eldritch Press,  
notified readers on its home page that the new law would  
force it to close next month. 
 
"This site will be shut November 11, 1998, as a direct result  
of the chilling effect of the series of laws regarding copyright  
and the Internet passed by the U.S. Congress," read the  
notice. "We no longer see a future for us as individuals to  
construct a free public library for the world on the Internet." 
 
The American Library Association months ago predicted that  
the new law would threaten the American tradition of free flow  
of information, and librarians now face new expanded federal  
regulations. 
... 
One Web site operator vowed to defy the spirit of the law  
while observing its letter. 
 
"I'm going to post 72 books today, just to say, 'Take that!' "  
said Michael Hart, a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon  
University and director of Project Gutenberg free book site, in  
an interview with The New York Times. 
 
Hart's site features 1,700 books, all in the public domain and  
posted by volunteers, and he said he was worried about the  
future availability even of old texts. According to Hart, books  
that "squeaked by" just before the new law took effect  
include Ulysses, by James Joyce, and Samuel Butler's  
translation of Homer's The Odyssey. 
... 
The Clinton administration maintained that the more-onerous  
provisions of the bill were changed before it was passed by  
Congress. And in Hollywood, major movie studios uncorked  
the champagne to celebrate the new law, the result of  
months of high pressure by movie makers and record  
companies, most now owned by those same studios. 
 
"This gives us enough confidence that our ability to use the  
digital domain to encrypt, encode and scramble our works  
can truly protect our properties," Time Warner Senior Vice  
President Tim Boggs, the company's chief lobbyist, told the  
Los Angeles Times in a story headlined "Company Town:  
Congress Puts Power Behind Hollywood's Goals." 
..... 
 
full text 
http://www.freedomforum.org/technology/1998/10/30webcasts
                   
.asp 
 
source 
http://www.nytimes.com
    
                 
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edited by  
published on: 1998-10-31 
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