1. Rubin talks about the tension between entrepreneurship and democracy. He writes about the legitimate needs of business and industry and the legal ways in which businesses protect proprietary information. Consider the following scenario: A commercial courier service representative arrives with a package for the library. Upon opening it you find many photocopies of documents, including e-mails, that clearly show a local company has been using a loophole in the law to dump toxic waste into a nearby lake. The drinking water for your community is drawn from that lake. The dumping as been going on secretly for many years. Many of your friends and neighbors work for that company. You are aware that they signed non-disclosure agreements when they were hired by this company. This package appears to be in violation of that agreement. There is no return address on the package. What do you do?

2. Rubin talks about the issues commonly referred to as 'Net neutrality. Are we stakeholders in this issue? In what way? There have been debates over the years about libraries being proactive on various social issues. Should the LIS profession take a public stand on this issue? Why or why not?

3. Rubin talks about a balancing of interests. Taking into account the Doctrine of First Sale and the Doctrine of Fair Use discussed, how would you envision this balancing of interests to play out in the library or other information environment in which you intend to work?

4. The author talks about the differences between copyright law and contract law. Historically libraries have been "keepers of the culture." In other words, libraries preserve the records of the culture for future generations. When you read Rubin's discussion of contract law as it applies to electronic resources, do you see a conflict with our traditional roles? What would that be?

Weiss & Shelfer

1. Weiss and Shelfer note that a report on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) concluded that the DCMA could jeopardize free speech or impede scientific research. How could a copyright law jeopardize free speech or impede scientific research? Do information professionals have a responsibility to work for a revision of this law?