#20 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[James Finch]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

As a Concept Reference question, the first order of business is to determine where in the passage the concept is present, and in what context. Paragraph 3's first few sentences talk about messages on answering machines, analogizing them to documents uploaded to web pages, thus tying them to the copyright debate in question in the passage as a whole. The key to the analogy is the intent to distribute the messages, whether that be on an answering machine or a web page. Thus the Prephrase should include this intentional distribution of messages.

Answer choice (A): While this may be initially tempting, the electronic nature of the transmission isn't the key, but rather the intent to make the information public.

Answer choice (B): This is an opposite answer. Further on in paragraph 3, it is implied that documents uploaded to web pages would in fact have their distribution legally controlled by the original uploader; by analogy, this implies that outgoing messages on answering machines would also be controllable by the person who records them, making this answer choice contrary to the information in the passage.

Answer choice (C): This isn't mentioned anywhere in the passage, and doesn't affect the argument being made. This means it's unknown information and thus incorrect.

Answer choice (D): Recording the message may be an unintended consequence of its distribution, but this unknown. Instead what we do know is that the person recording the message must have intended to distribute it to others. This does not mean that they intended to then allow these first listeners to record and distribute the message the third-parties.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. This fits perfectly with our Prephrase, and reflects accurately the stated analogy given on lines 33-37 about the intentionality of the recorder of the messages being the same as that of the uploader of a document.

[KokomoJo]

I answered B and kept that answer during blind review. Here is what I wrote in my notes when I blind reviewed this question:
E is wrong because it doesn't matter if the message was "purposely" made available. Something could be made publicly available by accident.
B is the only option that connects the telephone analogy to copyright law generally, which is literally what the question is asking about.

Somebody please explain how the passage publicly available messages are protected against unauthorized distribution.

[KokomoJo]

typo in the last sentence there but u get the point

[Luke Haqq]

Hi KokomoJo!

I'm not sure that I see a problem with the word "purposely" in answer choice (E). Another word that could be substituted is "intentionally." A voicemail is something a person intentionally creates for other people who call the person's phone. The passage makes clear that B linking to A's document on the web is similar to B sharing A's phone number, with the result that people may hear A's voicemail. This is discussed at length in the final paragraph of the passage, primarily the first half of it from lines 30 to 44.

Regarding answer choice (B), I don't see anything in the passage that clearly states this. If there are specific line references you can point out that indicate that to be the most relevant feature of voicemails, we can certainly dig deeper into why answer choice (B) is incorrect.