ACT reading. Need of Dire help!!

TseYangdu
Sat, 27 Nov 2010 16:49:21 +0000

Hi. This is my first time here. I have never been much of a reader and I need huge help in the reading section of the ACT. This is just bugging me out cause why can’t the authors just say what they wanna say in simple words. The following is the sample passage I really need help on:

The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes care to draw: the distinction between republishing some one’s work, on the one hand, and building upon or transforming that work on the work on the other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; copywright today regulates both.
Before the technologies of the internet, this conflation didn’t matter all that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive: that mean the vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear the burden of the law–even the burden of the byzantine complexity that copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business. But with the birth of the internet, this natural limit to the reach of the law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of the commercial creators, but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not matter much if the copyright law regulated only “copying” when the law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a lot.


Can you please tell me what this passage means. I think the idea of the passage is pretty vague. Like how can it the technology of publishing is expensive then it has to be commercial. It dosen’t really make sense. Also what is the “natural limit” refering to. Also what is “byzantine complexity”. Also what is “extension” refering to. How is does the law control commercial creators.

Thanks so much. P.S I got this passage from the booklet kaplan test prep.