Butler, Aufderheide, Jaszi and Cox (2019)
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Source Details
| Butler, Aufderheide, Jaszi and Cox (2019) | |
| Title: | Cracking the Copyright Dilemma in Software Preservation: Protecting Digital Culture Through Fair Use Consensus |
| Author(s): | Butler, B., Aufderheide, P., Jaszi, P., Cox, K. |
| Year: | 2019 |
| Citation: | Butler, B., Aufderheide, P., Jaszi, P., & Cox, K. (2019). Cracking the Copyright Dilemma in Software Preservation: Protecting Digital Culture through Fair Use Consensus? Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship, 3(3), 1-23. |
| Link(s): | Definitive , Open Access |
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| About the Data | |
| Data Description: | Interviews to 41 members of the software preservation community (with more than 10 years of experience) carefully selected through a combination of contacts from the Software Preservation Network (SPN) and snowball sampling. |
| Data Type: | Primary data |
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| Country(ies): | |
| Cross Country Study?: | No |
| Comparative Study?: | No |
| Literature review?: | No |
| Government or policy study?: | No |
| Time Period(s) of Collection: | |
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Abstract
“Copyright problems may inhibit the crucially important work of preserving legacy software. Such software is worthy of study in its own right because it is critical to accessing digital culture and expression. Preservation work is essential for communicating across boundaries of the past and present in a digital era. Software preservationists in the United States have addressed their copyright problems by developing a code of best practices in employing fair use. Their work is an example of how collective action by users of law changes the norms and beliefs about law, which can in turn change the law itself insofar as the law takes account of community norms and practices. The work of creating the code involved facilitators who are communication, information sciences, and legal scholars and practitioners. Thus, the creation of the code is also an example of crossing the boundaries between technology and policy research".
Main Results of the Study
In order to draft a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Software Preservation, it was essential to assess the current practices with regard to copyright challenges in software preservation and the consequent implications for goals of such preservation. In the context of literature review conducted prior to the interviews, it was demonstrated that software preservation community considered copyright as one of most uncertain areas that would affect their work. In particular, they expressed concerns towards software licensing practices, and the most popular solution was to. ask permission through the use of a blanket license between libraries and software publishers. With regard to the interviews to professionals in the software preservation community, participants were unanimously convinced that copyright was the most significant barrier to preservation goals. They expressed a certain security in licensing, without taking fair use issues into consideration. Moreover, interviewees could not ask anyone for good advice, and thus they usually adopted caution in their activities (copyright anxiety), and this often resulted in a noticeable frustration due to such a massive copyright barrier.
Policy Implications as Stated By Author
Whilst the study does not make explicit policy recommendations, the researchers do offer an assessment of community practice/governance. By analysing the actual conditions of software preservation in the copyright context, researchers could properly understand the decision-making procedure of a certain community.
Coverage of Study
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