ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION This chapter addresses the problems that multimedia information services and products pose for copyright and the technological solutions that are being adopted to deal with them. It argues that the development of these technologies will result in higher costs of access to electronic information and this, in turn, is likely to create a society of information rich and information poor. Available evidence shows that, currently, the use of these services is largely concentrated in the hands of ‘big business’, and to a much lesser degree utilised by small and medium sized companies, the educational community and the home consumer (Mansell and Tang, 1994). The chapter concludes by suggesting that government policies must actively promote public awareness of intellectual property laws, and implement the use of multimedia services, thereby demonstrating the benefits of access to a vast range of information.
