The information giants, Google being the largest, trade every day and build high-valuation mega-opolies on the back of very personal information without including their sources of value with any tangible return for their investment of exclusive data. The time has come to ask the question whether the grand bargain of "cool tools" in…

Discusses provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) that relate to special librarians and offer a limitation on liability for online service providers. Highlights include eligibility requirements; storing material and referring users to material at other locations through hypertext links or search engines; system caching; and scope…

Online copyright problems may be resolvable by a simple permission method. Describes Project Xanadu, a system of hypermedia publishing servers, designed to preserve integrity, copyright, and royalty for digital materials, yet allow reuse. Discusses permission doctrine; aspects of supporting software; legal status of transcopyright; variations not…

Discusses new pricing models for some online services and considers the possibilities for the traditional online database market. Topics include multimedia music databases, including copyright implications; other retail-oriented databases; and paying for free databases with advertising. (LRW)

Describes factors to consider when doing business research on the World Wide Web. Highlights include cost, variety of information and viewpoints, timeliness of information, ease of use, time used in searching, quality and value, online vendors and online services, ownership and copyright, and an appendix that annotates 16 Web sites. (LRW)

Discusses the use of America Online and CompuServe to find clip art, photos, and other images for use in desktop publishing projects. Highlights include copyright issues, different graphic formats, graphic conversion programs, compression programs, and downloading. (LRW)

This document presents the proceedings of a conference on the issues of intellectual property rights in a technology-driven environment. Following an introduction which summarizes the conference presentations and discussions, copies of the five presentations are provided: (1) "The OTA (Office of Technology Assessment) Report on Intellectual…

Highlights key aspects of and issues related to the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998," a bill passed by the U.S. Senate on May 14, 1998. Discussion includes banning of black boxes (i.e., technological-protection measures such as tv signal scramblers), fair-use protection, identification of copyrighted works, protection for…

Discusses (1) the history of document delivery; (2) the delivery process--end-user request, intermediary request, vendor reference, citation verification, obtaining document and source relations, quality control, transferring document to client, customer service and status, invoicing and billing, research and development, and copyright; and (3)…

The increasing popularity of digital information has brought great convenience to library patrons. It has, however, posed challenges to libraries in achieving their major missions, i.e., preservation and dissemination of information. The underlying reasons for this phenomenon are dichotomous: the restrictions imposed by electronic information…

Discusses problems for information professionals arising from traditional copyright legislation, as well as from the proposed Uniform Commercial Code 2B on information licensing. Highlights include responsibility of information consumers; World Wide Web terms and conditions, including those of newspapers and publishers; privacy issues; database…

Discusses issues that must be addressed by universities in order to ensure access to information resources by students and faculty, and possible roles of academic libraries within the electronic environment. Topics covered include the changing face of knowledge, costs of information technology, copyrights, and universities as organizations. (14…