05-12-2007, 04:55 PM
capitalist_junkie Wrote:It's really frustating that if you publish anything, it becomes the property of the publisher, not you, even though you created it. I know a professor who had to ask her publisher's permission to photocopy portions of a textbook SHE WROTE and use it in her class. I think that we really need to rethink copyright law . . .
See, I went to college in Venezuela, and over there it is difficult to find many books, because they are hard to find and very expensive. So, it was a common practice of professors to bring a book and send it to the copying department, which was run by one or two full time technicians, and students. Then, they'll make copies of the book for the whole group, or only the chapters that we were studying. We paid for the copies and it was like a very low fee extra. Basically it was very cheap and the only way to actually be able to study with what we had. The copyright law over there was pretty much non existing!