Attention Publishers: Copyright Law Isn't Something Flexible Where You Get To Set The Rules

Legal Issues

from the this-again? dept

There’s just something about the nature of intellectual property law that seems to make people believe it gives them a lot more power (and flexibility to define their power) than it really does. We see this quite often with bogus trademark claims, but it’s often seen with copyrights as well. Last month, we pointed to the case where a website’s copyright notice pretended it had the right to prevent fair use just by saying it was so. Now, Michael Geist has noticed that a travel guide he recently purchased has a copyright notice inside that again makes claims about what the owner can do with the book that seem to fall well outside the official limits of copyright — including things like banning fair use photocopying. It’s not even a case where the book publisher is asserting that the book has a separate license. Instead, it claims that these things are forbidden under Canadian (in this case) copyright law — which they’re not. For very good reasons, this upsets Geist, who worries about people and companies who seem to believe they can simply claim what copyright law means when it’s much more limited. Of course, in this age when the legal profession and the media keeps talking up the wonders of ever more aggressive intellectual property protection, is it any wonder that this is what we end up with?