Entretiens / Interviews / EntrevistasLebert, Marie
Science
Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas
Lebert, Marie
Internet; World Wide Web
= What has happened since our first interview? Any new projects, new ideas...?
No real new projects. New ideas, yes, but I'm still working on them.
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web? What practical
suggestions do you have?
That's a very big subject.
First there are the copyright and reproduction rights of big companies. These
are relatively well supported legally, either through internal legal means or by
hiring specialized companies.
There's no doubt the "dematerialization" of information, brought about by the
Internet and digitization, makes it easier to undermine intellectual property in
various ways.
The danger is real for small producers/distributors of "original" content, who
don't have the means to monitor the theft of their products, or to take legal
action to ensure their rights are respected.
But all this is the "official" part -- cases of plagiarism that can be found in
"rematerialized" works. There is perhaps a more insidious form of plagiarism,
which is the theft of ideas, concepts, formulas, etc., with no mention of their
origin. It's hard to "prove" such plagiarism because it is not just a matter of
"copy and paste". But it's another aspect of the issue which is often obscured
in the debate.
What's the solution? We need a system where you can register free of charge an
article, book or piece of music with an international organization that can take
legal action against plagiarism. This wouldn't solve all the problems, but would
at least establish a basic structure and, who knows, might deter the thieves.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web? What practical suggestions do
you have?
We passed the milestone this summer. Now more than half the users of the
Internet live outside the United States. Next year more than half of all users
will be non English-speaking, compared with only 5% five years ago. Isn't that
great?
At the same time, the Internet has became multi-faceted and now requires more
and more efficient tools because of the "enrichment" of content (or rather of
what contains it, because as far as the real content is concerned, there's no
enrichment, except of the firms that sell it). The Internet needs strong
systems, with good memory and powerful microprocessors. Development of the non
English-speaking Web will be mainly aimed at people who have no way of getting
powerful systems or the latest software and operating systems, or of upgrading
or renewing it all every year. Also, communication infrastructure is sorely
lacking in many places outside Europe and the United States. So there is a
problem of bandwidth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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