One of the biggest challenges for the folks that "get it" is going to be making the other millions of people who don't "get it" understand why we need to speak out against the DMCA and CBDTPA now before things get any worse. Bruce and I had a discussion the other day about how to get this down to a personal level that my Mom, my neighbor, or John Q. Public will understand.

I was noting how you probably wouldn't be able to email a Word document, fax a copy of a contract, or send a digital video of your daughter to her favorite aunt. Heck, webcams might become illegal (not that John Q. Public uses them, but the breadth of consequences is truly staggering).

To this end, Mary Wehmeier has helped greatly in this area by writing an open letter to Senator Hollings in which she explains how the consequences of his proposed legislation will put her small business out of business.

"The proposed 'Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act' (CBDTPA) you and Senators Feinstein, Stevens, Inouye, Breaux and Nelson are co-sponsoring will make it impossible for independent editor like myself, to remain in business. Why? Because the proposed SSSCA does not differentiate between someone illegally duplicating DVDs or video tapes for sale, from me trying to earn a living by editing a commercial spot from my home....

In essence the CBDTPA will put me out of business. Because as a small business, I can not afford to purchase expensive proprietary editing stations used by the corporate entertainment industry to upgrade my business in the coming years. Our editing systems use reasonably priced off-the-shelf computers. Furthermore, the CBDTPA makes it clear that it would be illegal for me to purchase or alter a stock system in order to do my work. So either way I lose."

She even explained this one step further for me in an email that I hope she won't mind me quoting:

"Here's a thought-- if Hollings' Bill goes through, independent video and audio editors like me are totally screwed.  To you as a librarian, all that AV equipment used to create materials in your library goes bye bye, or the prices go so insanely out of budget you will never see it. Why? Because about 80% of those materials are produced today by people like me."

That's one end of the dilemna this will pose for libraries. The other is that your existing collection (audio and video) suddenly becomes either illegal or it's unplayable on new equipment that has the copyright protection embedded in it. The cost to replace all of those materials would be astronomical (it would be like starting over from scratch), but the truth is that it would be a waste of your time to even try.

The BigCos can't provide you with digital materials you can circulate because their copyright protection schemes won't allow it. The minute they open a loophole for libraries, hackers have an open door through which to decrypt the content, which puts them back where they are now. So clearly they're not going to allow for the traditional exemption of circulation rights for libraries. But without it, you have no digital material to circulate to your patrons. Even pretending you did, it probably wouldn't play on all of the various machines out there, because who really expects the tech, music, video, TV, publishing, and other industries to all agree on one standard?

So now we have a future where consumers, the tech industry, small businesses, and libraries lose all of their existing rights and purposes. Consumers lose fair use, the tech industry (hardware and software) loses innovation and progress, small businesses lose the ability to communicate digital files (which means anything you do on your PC, fax machine, email, the web, etc.), and libraries lose access to all future content that is created in an electronic format. All so the entertainment industry can keep their content locked up from the very people that want to be entertained by it in the first place. It's absurd!

Social Animals

"Jon Udell pointed to Malcolm Gladwell's "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" article in The New Yorker. I finally got around to reading it over the weekend. It reminded me of Thomas Stewart's article "America's Secret Weapon" in the December 2001 issue of Business 2.0, and in particular the map showing the social relationships of the 9/11/2001 hijackers. I find it interesting how the Internet changes social dynamics. Someone may be a Connector in cyberspace, but a dud in meatspace. How long is your Buddy List? [The Peanut Gallery]

I'm posting this for my future memory loss because I was looking for the map of the relationships between the 9/11 hijackers the other day and couldn't find it. Serendipity is a wonderful thing!

Doesn't it seem, though, like the names should be links to information about the hijacker, along with a picture?

I'd like to see this type of map done for libraryland. I think it would be interesting to see the blogging relationships and then map the spread of memes against them.

Oxford Online: Will People Pay?

"Oxford University Press (OUP) is publishing its core language and subject reference dictionaries online for the first time, creating what could be the largest general knowledge source on the Web. ...

The Core Collection, the first database to be available as part of Oxford Reference Online, integrates over 100 dictionaries and reference titles across an array of subjects -- from astronomy to zoology -- into a single cross-searchable resource....

All that information comes at a price, however. Annual subscription fees will cost approximately $250 a year for schools and anywhere from $395 to just under $3,000 for multiple-user accounts such as libraries....

'There is a great deal of free information on the Web, but Oxford Reference Online offers reference material that is of the highest quality that is easily searchable -- with the ability to cross-search from any word -- all in one location," Scriven agreed. "Nothing similar is offered free on the Web....'

Oxford Reference Online follows the launch of the Oxford English Dictionary in March 2000 as part of the dictionary's first complete revision in its 120-year history." [Wired News]

I think it's great that Oxford is making their collections available online, and they're doing it the right way, too. The next time you hear someone say that libraries are irrelevant because of the internet, ask them to shell out $1000 for access to this one Oxford collection alone.

That's why libraries are a public good, and a bargain of a one at that. Librarians love the OED, and looking up a word there is always much more fun than looking it up in any other dictionary. Making it searchable will only increase its value, although I worry a bit of the sense of history and wonder might be lost so I don't want to lose the print version of this one either.

The idea of being able to search (let alone cross-search) all of the Oxford guides online someday is making more than a few librarians do the happy dance.  :-)