A look at the copyrights in New Zealand cultural heritage collections
LibraryTechNZ summarises the state of cultural heritage collections 
and the copyright challenges posed to them, “There are many fine institutions collecting New Zealand’s culture and heritage; to keep it safe and then make it available so others can create new knowledge and experiences. Often this is made possible through the generous donations of material from members of the public. These institutions know it is important to share the treasures in these collections, but there is a fear some users may not treat the material with the respect it is due [...] firstly a quick (though lengthy) round up on what all the different kinds of rights are, and then next a look at a suggestion for how the Creative Commons licences could be extended so they meet the needs of cultural heritage institutions.” One minor comment about the article however,
The article says,
When authors/creators can’t earn a living by selling their work (because anyone can get a copy for free) then they are forced to stop creating new works (to earn a living some other way), and this loss is detrimental to society
I think this is perhaps too simplistic. Selling copies is but one business model, and there are many other business models that don’t depend on scarcity of information (advertising in general, open source companies, musicians that earn more from touring, authors that release their book free online but sell paper copies, etc.).
The internet is simply the world’s most powerful copying machine, and it has reduced the costs of copying to practically nothing. Selling copies is one model, but it woudl be fair to say that the internet has facilitated new business models that benefit from mass and unregulated distribution.
For more information visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open_source_software
