[h2o-discuss] Open content -definition

["James H. Johnston" <jimjohn@erols.com>]

    I attended a demonstration of the Library of Congress's expanded Web
site.  It wants to digitize and put online as much of its collections as
possible.  It has historical documents, photographs, movies, and sound
recordings online.  For example, there is a copy of a draft of the
Declaration of Independence with the interlineations of Jefferson and
Franklin.  The Library also makes images of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
some translations available.
    The presenter pointed out that the Library's ability to put online
materials produced since the 1920s is limited by copyright problems.
This is an open content issue, and related to the issues raised in the
Berkman Center's representation in Eldred v. Reno.
    But the Library also has online more recent material from its
Leonard Bernstein collection.  Some of this is apparently subject to
copyright.  Still, the Library has put it online together with a warning
against redistribution.  See
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lbhtml/lbres.html.  I think Eric Eldred has
alluded to this approach as one way to get copyrighted books online.
    I have two questions.  First, is this approach -- putting
copyrighted material online but retaining the copyright in order to
prevent redistribution -- open content?  Second, is there any economic
value to the copyrighted material once it is put online?  Obviously in
the case of a sound recording or graphic the off-line version might be
of higher quality, but this would not be true of textual material.

Jim Johnston