What Matters Who Writes? What Matters Who Responds?

Andrea Lunsford, Rebecca Rickly, Michael Salvo, and Susan West


Since I gave this presentation, I have been at work with a number of others in our field to build up the CCCC Caucus on Intellectual Property listserv. If you would like to subscribe to this list, contact Jim Porter and ask to be added to the listserv. This group will hold its third meeting at the CCCC meeting in Milwaukee in March, and has recently been instrumental in getting CCCC, NCTE, and MLA to sign on to the "Digital Future Coalition," a group of lawyers, librarians, and scholars in a number of fields who are concerned that copyright laws have tilted so dramaticaIly in favor of the "creator" that they leave the public domain or the public good empty-handed. Wow, what a mixed mataphor! At any rate, the US Constitution says that copyright exists to create incentives for people to create works so that these works can contribute to the public good. The second part of the equation has, today, been practically forgotten. Every teacher reading this hypertext should find out about the legislation now pending in Congress--legislation that would extend copyright still another twenty years and that would put still more limits on what should, in my opinion, be "free" information.
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Postmodern (un)grounding * Collaboration * Copy(w)right/Ownership * Possible Futures

Title Page * Conclusions