- PowerScore Staff
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- Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:00 am
#73795
Complete Question Explanation
The correct answer choice is A.
This is an especially tricky Main Point question, not least because there is not a single sentence in the passage that can convincingly be isolated as the sole main point of the passage. Moreover, this author has a tendency to move back and forth between highly specific and more general language. So it's not always clear what the author means to convey to the reader. However, keeping a close eye on certain context clues will eventually determine that the author's primary concern in the passage is to answer a rather narrow and specific question about how copyright law should treat Internet links to documents, where the person providing the link is not the owner of the document.
The first paragraph provides a key context clue for the author's overall concern. It says that the World Wide Web "raises
legal issues about the rights of owners of intellectual property, notably those who create documents for inclusion on Web pages." Thus, right from the start we get the sense that the author is "notably" concerned about specific owners of intellectual property, those who create documents to be placed on web pages.
The author's focus remains on those specific owners in paragraph two, where the author gives details about the process of linking to documents on the web, and concludes the paragraph with a legal question that indicates the specific "legal issue" about which the author is most concerned: "If person A, the author of a document, puts the document on a Web page, and person B, the creator of another Web page, creates a link to A’s document, is B committing copyright infringement?"
The answer to this text question is the reason the author is writing. The author actually answers this question in a very oblique way (using general terms that are not as clear as we might like) in the final sentence of the passage, by stating that "Changing copyright law to benefit owners of intellectual property is thus ill-advised." Again, we have to rely on the context provided by the passage to understand the substance of this answer. Who are the owners? Go back to paragraph one, where they're identified as the ones who create documents to put on web pages (that other people link to). What would changing the law to benefit those owners entail? Again, go back to paragraph one, where those same owners are arguing that "unless copyright law is strengthened [i.e. changed], intellectual property on the Web [i.e. the documents they place on web pages] will not be protected from copyright infringement." Now we can fully understand the final sentence of the passage: the author is saying that we should not strengthen copyright law to protect those who place documents on web pages that other people link to. In other words, copyright law should not stop people from linking to other people's documents on the web. This is our prephrase, and it is best matched by answer choice A.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed above, this answer choice best fits the author's narrow concern throughout the passage, which is limited to what copyright law should do about people linking to documents placed on the web by the owners of those documents. Copyright law should not interfere with this process of linking, as the last sentence of the passage (read contextually) makes clear.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice is too broad to be the main point, moreoever it refers to information the author of the passage does not discuss, specifically what is "necessary in a democracy."
Answer choice (C): Answer choice C runs counter to what the passage states. The passage states that the owner of a document may restrict access to it (e.g. through the use of passwords), but the author of the passage does not believe that such restriction may be accomplished "without inhibiting the rights of others to exchange ideas freely." Rather, the author believes such restriction "would compromise the openness of the Web somewhat, but not as much as the threat of copyright infringement litigation."
Answer choice (D): Answer choice D sweeps far too broadly in its terminology. The passage is about one specific problem (linking to documents) created in the context of one specific form of electronic media (the World Wide Web), not about any "problems" created by any "new forms of electronic media." Moreover, the author does not clearly argue for the easy resolution of the problem using "basic commonsense principles" (a notion the author never discusses).
Answer choice (E): The language of answer choice E is generally far too exaggerated to fit the author's perspective. For example, the author never discusses "radical alteration of copyright laws aimed at restricting the Web’s growth." Rather the author discusses certain alteration of copyright laws that might have the effect of restricting the Web's growth (without saying that anyone is actually "aiming at" restricting such growth). Furthermore, the author's statements do not support answer choice E's reference to the benefit of free expression "far outweigh[ing]" the benefits of altering copyright law.
The correct answer choice is A.
This is an especially tricky Main Point question, not least because there is not a single sentence in the passage that can convincingly be isolated as the sole main point of the passage. Moreover, this author has a tendency to move back and forth between highly specific and more general language. So it's not always clear what the author means to convey to the reader. However, keeping a close eye on certain context clues will eventually determine that the author's primary concern in the passage is to answer a rather narrow and specific question about how copyright law should treat Internet links to documents, where the person providing the link is not the owner of the document.
The first paragraph provides a key context clue for the author's overall concern. It says that the World Wide Web "raises
legal issues about the rights of owners of intellectual property, notably those who create documents for inclusion on Web pages." Thus, right from the start we get the sense that the author is "notably" concerned about specific owners of intellectual property, those who create documents to be placed on web pages.
The author's focus remains on those specific owners in paragraph two, where the author gives details about the process of linking to documents on the web, and concludes the paragraph with a legal question that indicates the specific "legal issue" about which the author is most concerned: "If person A, the author of a document, puts the document on a Web page, and person B, the creator of another Web page, creates a link to A’s document, is B committing copyright infringement?"
The answer to this text question is the reason the author is writing. The author actually answers this question in a very oblique way (using general terms that are not as clear as we might like) in the final sentence of the passage, by stating that "Changing copyright law to benefit owners of intellectual property is thus ill-advised." Again, we have to rely on the context provided by the passage to understand the substance of this answer. Who are the owners? Go back to paragraph one, where they're identified as the ones who create documents to put on web pages (that other people link to). What would changing the law to benefit those owners entail? Again, go back to paragraph one, where those same owners are arguing that "unless copyright law is strengthened [i.e. changed], intellectual property on the Web [i.e. the documents they place on web pages] will not be protected from copyright infringement." Now we can fully understand the final sentence of the passage: the author is saying that we should not strengthen copyright law to protect those who place documents on web pages that other people link to. In other words, copyright law should not stop people from linking to other people's documents on the web. This is our prephrase, and it is best matched by answer choice A.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed above, this answer choice best fits the author's narrow concern throughout the passage, which is limited to what copyright law should do about people linking to documents placed on the web by the owners of those documents. Copyright law should not interfere with this process of linking, as the last sentence of the passage (read contextually) makes clear.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice is too broad to be the main point, moreoever it refers to information the author of the passage does not discuss, specifically what is "necessary in a democracy."
Answer choice (C): Answer choice C runs counter to what the passage states. The passage states that the owner of a document may restrict access to it (e.g. through the use of passwords), but the author of the passage does not believe that such restriction may be accomplished "without inhibiting the rights of others to exchange ideas freely." Rather, the author believes such restriction "would compromise the openness of the Web somewhat, but not as much as the threat of copyright infringement litigation."
Answer choice (D): Answer choice D sweeps far too broadly in its terminology. The passage is about one specific problem (linking to documents) created in the context of one specific form of electronic media (the World Wide Web), not about any "problems" created by any "new forms of electronic media." Moreover, the author does not clearly argue for the easy resolution of the problem using "basic commonsense principles" (a notion the author never discusses).
Answer choice (E): The language of answer choice E is generally far too exaggerated to fit the author's perspective. For example, the author never discusses "radical alteration of copyright laws aimed at restricting the Web’s growth." Rather the author discusses certain alteration of copyright laws that might have the effect of restricting the Web's growth (without saying that anyone is actually "aiming at" restricting such growth). Furthermore, the author's statements do not support answer choice E's reference to the benefit of free expression "far outweigh[ing]" the benefits of altering copyright law.
Jeremy Press
LSAT Instructor and law school admissions consultant
Follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/JeremyLSAT
LSAT Instructor and law school admissions consultant
Follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/JeremyLSAT
