Information access, democracy and changed copyright

The rapid change within digital medias has increased the possibilities to make information accessible through network. Therefore the European Union EU considers a harmonization within the Union, in order to strengthen the rights of the originator. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate how the EUs directive 2001/29/EG regarding copyright is to be implemented into Swedish legislation and assess the common opinion in the public libraries on this matter. The basic methodology of this thesis is a democratic perspective, concerning the public libraries democratic role and the right of the citizens to have access to information. The thesis first part is a study of documents. The second part is also an empirical assessment where qualitative interviews were carried out at five public libraries in Sweden. The originators have the exclusive right of reproduction to their work and the exclusive right to communicate their work to the public. In order for libraries to make information accessible there are a number of restrictions in the copyright legislation. The new legislative proposal will decrease these restrictions to some extent, and the libraries right to reproduce is going to increase. The proposal offers a new contractual license to reproduce and disseminate digital information. It involves new possibilities and simplifies the libraries work in order to make the information accessible. During the interviews a relatively limited knowledge regarding copyright legislation among the respondents emerged, but the general opinion was that the biggest problem with the new legislation was the control function it possibly would demand.Uppsatsnivå: