Satisfaction with digital copyright law : a comparison of New Zealand and United States publishers' and librarians' degrees of satisfaction with copyright law in the digital environment

Abstract

The aim of the research was to determine and compare views on copyright in the digital environment of the library and publishing communities in New Zealand and in the United States. A content analysis of selected target documents, principally the archive of New Zealand electronic discussion lists maintained by Knowledge Basket, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, was conducted. Ninety-three documents, mainly from the years 2000 and 2001, were rated for the degree of the respondents' satisfaction with existing digital copyright law. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups. All groups had a mean rating of around 3 on a 5-point scale, suggesting that they all are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with current copyright law. Sampling difficulties and limitations of the study are discussed.