PT 39.3.25 (RC, ugh)

Accounts Playable

I continue to BR PT 39, and I got my ass handed to me on this one (seriously, did other people think PT 39 was much harder than 38)? I BR'd 9 points lower on this exam compared to PT 38, and I used a blank exam to BR.

Anyway, I don't understand at all how A is the correct answer for this one. I picked E (during the exam and during BR), and here was my reasoning (this is from my comment on the video):

I don’t understand question 25 at all. In line 3, it states that Internet users believe that access to information should be free. How would charging people for information (answer choice A) be a compromise? This seems to go against the core principle of the Internet users as established in the passage. Also, wouldn’t charging people further promote the idea that the information is a commodity (line 60)? To me, this answer choice is no compromise, but a full rejection of the Internet community and full acceptance of the publishing community's ideals.

Additionally, how is E not a better answer choice? Research is already exempted under the current laws, so current copyright holders are presumably familiar with this idea. Also, this keeps with the tradition of the free access to information. Yes, the free information wouldn’t be to everyone (only those conducting research), but it’s a compromise! I fail to see how A works at all, let alone is better than this answer. It seems to me that both sides would agree to this.

c.janson35

I think you are only looking for an answer that (1) allows everyone to use the information and (2) respects the publishing communities longstanding practice of treating copyrighted works (CW) as commodities able to be sold.

I think E is incorrect because it restricts the use of CW to only people doing research, so there would be a severe restriction on the use of CW (because of all the activities that would now be illegal that aren't research).

A balances the two conditions more effectively, though, because everyone would still be able to use the information and the publishing community would still be able to profit from it. I think it's also important that it says "small fee" because this means that the burden imposed would be very minimal.