Video tapes and ACR

[Carl Hamann <carl_hamann@AD.CLAKE.WNYRIC.ORG>]

    As a lurker and a participant in several copyright workshops and
presentations I have to share a concern.
    Today's postings included  offers of a blank video tape to record something
missed on TV.  Copying of video tapes does not come under fair use and a request
or offer to do such copying is an open invitation to have some litigious
producer make a test case out of you and your school or library.  "If you can't
be good,  at least be careful."
    In a completely unrelated vein.  Don't dis ACR.  It costs money.  So do
books.  But any secondary librarian knows the frustration of trying to get
students to read anything other than a magazine for pleasure.  If the extrinisic
motivation of ACR will get people reading at an early age perhaps it will become
a lifetime habit.
    Children today are much busier than we were and look what happened to the
readers of our graduating classes. The average reader of contemporary fiction
today is said to be a middle aged, house wife from the mid-west.  Women who work
outside the home or who have families don't have time (or take time) to read;
men are worse off -- they don't have the support group led by Oprah and, if we
talk about books instead of football or hockey, we are either odd or
pretentious.
    Use ACR or any other means to hook them as readers at an early age and maybe
we will win the battle against watching pro sports and reruns of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer.  Then when one of our graduates is asked "What book are you
reading?" by an admissions counselor or a job interviewer he or she won't look
blank.
                        Carl Hamann
                        Librarian AV Director
                        Chautauqua Lake Central School
                        Mayville, New York
                        Carl_Hamann@clake.wnyric.org

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