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A Moral Dilemma?

By Scott J. Slavick
September 02, 2013

In today's society, copying is ubiquitous. But from the Code of Hammurabi forward, copying has a long and proud history. Before the advent of the printing press, monks would devote their lives to copying manuscripts. Outside abbeys and cloisters, lawyers would copy texts to memorize and share them. Even today, highlighting and copying content to represent it ' in education and in research as in law ' is a valuable and perhaps unavoidable method of learning, sharing, and persuading.

But in today's age of endless content recycling, the provenance of any particular published work can be disguised or ignored as it is churned through multiple media ' including on the Internet in social media. Content farms cycle news endlessly ' sometimes with items even being automatically generated by specially designed computer software. And it goes without saying how much Hollywood loves a recycled idea.

Consequently, it can be difficult for authors and creators to identify and assert their rights in their published works in every circumstance where they might have been licensed or are being used. But for licensors to overlook these rights brings peril. Corporations that are not mindful of the rules or that don't closely enough examine provisions in copyright agreements run risks; and lesser known elements of copyright law present risk also.

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