Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
BBC News is reporting that the British Library is worried that excessive digital rights management will over-ride copyright legislation, preventing libraries from exercising fair use rights. DRM would not expire when copyright did, and libraries might lack the ability to unlock the DRM, nor be able to contact the rights holders. Format-shifting DRM'd material to new formats would also be impossible.

As an interesting aside, the British Library apparently spends 1/8th of its acquisitions budget on digial materials, and predicts that:

"by 2020, 90% of newly published work will be available digitally - twice the amount that is printed".



| posted by Simon at 2:10 pm