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The rights of the publisher in the information society

Meulenhoff. P.O Box 100, 1000 AC Amsterdam, The Netherlands

For 100 years the philosophical basis of the Berne Conven tion was the concept of intellectual property. However, prop erty and other absolute private rights tend to give way to other interests that are felt to be more fundamental and more social. The system of copyright itself will in future need some ad ditional justification in order to raise a greater interest of politicians and public opinion in the copyright affected profes sions and to get their full support. There are quite a few scholars who indicate that new copyright concepts should also be focused on the 'accessibility of information' and on the 'continuity of creation of new information". If these priorities are to be safeguarded, the role of the producer (or the pub lisher, in the case of books) must be made clear in law and practice, because he is the specialist in the production of and the access to information.

Book publishers have the serious drawback that their pro fession is practically unknown to the public, to politicians and to legislators. Anecdotes and caricatures dating from before Berne still determine the public image of the publisher. Never theless, the role of books in modern society has expanded dramatically in all fields: science, education, culture and enter tainment. Book publishers should make the outside world more aware of their modem functions in the fields of editing, production and distribution. These valuable functions compare in complexity with those of the producers of audiovisual and electronic works. The modem functions of the book publisher require a better legal division between the rights of the author and those of the publisher. The investment risks and the importance of proper access to the work are too great to permit the role of the publisher to remain unresolved. The rights of the publisher should be nothing less than the exploitation right itself. The present practice by which publishers behave as holders of this right would be transformed into a clear division of functions. Such a strong right for publishers will create some obligations too. A fair code of practice in their trade with authors and for the protection of the public interest will be necessary. Such a code should preferably be defined by the profession itself.

Publishers will have to debate a fundamental review of copyright, in which the close partnership of authors and pub lishers should be recognized, along with a clear and practicable division between the author's rights and the publisher's rights. This will be in the interest of the cultural community to which they belong, and also to the continuity of their professions.

Journal of Information Science, Vol. 13, No. 6, 345-351 (1987)
DOI: 10.1177/016555158701300605


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