Copyright Social Justice and the Digital Gutenberg Moment
Citation: Lateef Mtima (2013/04/13) Copyright Social Justice and the Digital Gutenberg Moment. New York Law School Law Review (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Copyright Social Justice and the Digital Gutenberg Moment
Download: http://www.nylslawreview.com/6187-2/
Tagged: copyright (RSS)
Summary
Response to the "Gutenberg moment" included fear of information reaching the masses.
- "For those invested in the established order, the printing press was anathema to the status quo, and it was essential that copyright law be adopted at least in part as a means to preserve their positions of privilege, wealth, and power."
Copyright is again forestalling the contemporary "digital Gutenberg moment" from realizing its potential for "digital global libraries accessible to every human being on an equitable basis."
This forestalling is in spite of primacy of social interest over incentive. Social justice, however, goes beyond utility calculations:
- "Conditions of social injustice or inequity that obstruct, retard, or impede pervasive participation in or otherwise inhibit the copyright creative cycle must therefore be confronted as copyright social utility inefficiencies and deficiencies, and not solely as generic problems of social welfare."
Author notes how two court cases further social utility or social justice, and concludes:
- "To the extent that contrary interpretations or applications of the law appear to preclude the adoption of digital solutions to copyright social justice deficiencies, such interpretations and applications are fundamentally inconsistent with the social basis for copyright, and warrant rethinking, revision, or repeal."
