Reading Comprehension

PT123 · S4 · P3 · Q19 Web Intellectual Property

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The World Wide Web, a network of electronically produced and interconnected (or “linked”) sites, called pages, that are accessible via personal computer, raises legal issues about the rights of owners of intellectual property, notably those who create documents for inclusion on Web pages.

Central Topic

Intellectual property rights vs. Openness on the Internet

Purpose

To present and weigh in on a debate

Main Point

Linking to sites that display someone else's intellectual property is not a form of copyright infringement, especially given that the owner of the site can restrict access if they want to.

Passage Map

P1 - Framing the debate P2 - Zooming in on the origins of the debate P3 - Author resolves the central question from P2 and offers final thoughts

Other Commentry

This is from 2007, but it sounds like people in the 90's trying to figure out what "the interwebs" are. Also, they give a nicely anachronistic metaphor of "an answering machine".

Okay, cultural anachronisms aside, in terms of solving the big picture of this passage, we have a few key moments. By the end of the 1st paragraph, we can tell there's a debate because we had consecutive sentences saying, "Some of these owners claim" and "Web users, however".

The 2nd paragraph's topic sentence even refers to it as a debate and gives great guidance about the function of that paragraph. The 2nd paragraph ends with a question. Any time you see an LSAT author ask a question, it is almost sure to be integral to the main point/purpose of the passage.

The 3rd paragraph starts with a clear functional foreshadowing, letting us know that the 3rd paragraph will answer this question. We get "therefore" and "hence" telegraphing her conclusions. The last four sentences put the author's overall stamp on the debate, and we learn that she sides more with the "Web users" who want keep the web as open as possible.

19.

The passage most strongly implies which one of the following?

  1. There are no creators of

    Too Strong: "no one is both"

    Can't find anything in the passage that says people who put IP on the Web never create a link to another Web page.

    4% picked this

  2. Correct

    The person who controls access

    Why this is right

    The middle of the 3rd paragraph contains three sentences that support this, starting from "While B's link". This says that the A controls access to the document. A is offering it for distribution. B, who linked to A's document, is not making or distributing a copy of that document.

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

    70% picked this

  3. Rights of privacy should not

    Out of Scope: "privacy rights"

    The passage is about protecting the intellectual property rights of those who post their stuff on the Web. We never get into privacy rights. The author also does think that page owners have some IP rights; he thinks that page owners have the right to restrict access to the IP on their pages via passwords.

    9% picked this

  4. Those who create links to

    Unsupported: "control over who reads"

    Our author thinks that page owners have primary control over who has access to the contents of their pages. That is very different from saying that people who link to pages have primary control over who reads the linked pages.

    13% picked this

  5. A document on a Web

    Too Strong: "must be converted"

    The author doesn't say anything this extreme. She doesn't think that linking to A's web page is infringing on A's rights, because A has made that page viewable by the general public. But she might still believe that if I copy the content on A's web page and then display it on my web page, then I am infringing on A's rights.

    4% picked this

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