Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT115 S3 P4 Q25 Explanation

Canadian Copyrights and Digitialization

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsApplicationLaw

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Passage

The following passage was written in

Users of the Internet—the worldwide network of interconnected computer systems—envision it as a way for people to have free access to information via their personal computers. Most Internet communication consists of sending electronic mail or exchanging ideas on electronic bulletin boards; however, a growing number of transmissions are of copyrighted works—books, photographs, copyright holders look for ways to protect their material from unauthorized and uncompensated distribution.

Copyright experts say that Canadian copyright law, which was revised in 1987 to cover works such as choreography and photography, has not kept pace with technology—specifically with digitalization, the conversion of data into a series of digits that are transmitted as electronic signals over computer networks. Digitalization makes it possible to create clear whether digitalization constitutes a material reproduction—and so unauthorized digitalization is not yet technically a crime.

Some experts propose simply adding unauthorized digitalization to the list of activities proscribed under current law, to make it clear that copyright holders own electronic reproduction rights just as they own rights to other types of reproduction. But criminalizing digitalization raises a host of questions. For example, given that digitalization allows the the publishing community, which is accustomed to treating it as a commodity owned by its creator.

What this question is testing

Application

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
25.

Given the author’s argument, which one of the following additions to current Canadian copyright law would most likely be an agreeable compromise to both the Internet

Answer choices

  1. Correct72% picked this

    Digitalization of copyrighted works is permitted to Internet users who pay a small fee

    Why this is right

    At first this may seem to favor the publishing community too much, because the Internet users want everything to be free. But because it's a small fee, we could consider it a compromise between "pay nothing - what do you think this is, a bookstore?" and "pay full price - this is basically like a bookstore!"

    Skill tested: Application · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  2. Goes Against Internet Community5% picked this

    Digitalization of copyrighted works is prohibited to Internet users who are

    This would only represent the publishers' ownership interests. This doesn't feel like a compromise that offers anything to Internet users. If they're not in an academic context, they're simply banned from digitizing songs / books / images?

  3. Goes Against Publishing Community1% picked this

    Digitalization of copyrighted works is permitted to all Internet users

    This would only represent the Internet community's interests. This doesn't feel like a compromise that offers anything to the publishing community. Everybody is just allowed unrestricted rights to digitize all copyrighted works. That's not a compromise. That's a "we got everything we wanted" victory for the internet community.

  4. Goes Against Internet Community1% picked this

    Digitalization of copyrighted works is prohibited to all Internet users

    This would only represent the publishers' ownership interests. This doesn't feel like a compromise that offers anything to Internet users. It's even harsher than (B), which was already too harsh.

  5. Goes Against Internet Community21% picked this

    Digitalization of copyrighted works is permitted to Internet users engaged

    This does not appease the internet community, which wants digitized works to be treated as "information that is a raw material available for everyone to use". This answer sounds like the status quo. People engaged in private study or research are already granted copyright exemptions for non-digital stuff, and the author said "Even if the law is revised to contain a more sophisticated treatment of digitalization (meaning, it would have the same carve-outs for people engaged in study or research), most experts think it will be hard to resolve the clash". The author already seemed pessimistic that this sort of rule would resolve the clash. If this rule is implying that people not engaged in research aren't permitted to digitize copyrighted works, then it's way more restrictive than what the Internet community wants. If this rule allows people not engaged in research to also be permitted to digitize copyrighted works, then it's not restrictive enough for the publishing community.

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