Dominic Young is a fomer Chairman of the NLA, is now an entrepreneur and also blogs at www.copyrightblog.co.uk. The views expressed in this article are his personal views.
Recently, perhaps due to age or perhaps due to the pace of change, I have heard people talk authoritatively about things I personally was involved with, and getting it completely wrong.
One such thing is 'temporary copies'. This is a concept which exists in copyright law making certain kinds of copying legal even when there is no explicit licence, which featured in the NLA's web licensing case with Meltwater. The claim that the legal exception for temporary copies covers paid-for media monitoring was rejected by the courts - and some people are outraged. Browsing has been rendered illegal they say. The internet will break if the law stands.
Of course it is fine to say that you think the law is wrong and should be changed - and equally fine for people like me to disagree. But to say that the law will destroy the internet is, aside from being self- evidently untrue, also a rather dishonest way of trying to post-rationalise poor business and legal judgments of the past... read on at Dominic Young's Copyright Blog.