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 James Finch
PowerScore Staff
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#73861
Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

One last Concept Reference question for good measure. The only discussion about what present copyright law actually does, as opposed to a debate about it or what it should do, is found in paragraph 2 on lines 20-23, referencing the right of copyright holders to sue anyone distributing a work without permission. So this is our Prephrase, as it's the only completely known information the author gives in the passage on the subject of current copyright law.

Answer choice (A): An Opposite Answer, running completely contrary to the stated right of a copyright to sue for any unauthorized distribution.

Answer choice (B): Another Opposite Answer, as it is the copyright holder, not the website owner, who controls right of distribution under current copyright law.

Answer choice (C): Close but not quite the same thing as what the author says. A lawsuit is a form of redress for a wrong committed against a plaintiff, and the wrong mentioned here is unauthorized distribution, not profiting. Moreover, this answer choice also implies that profit would be barred even via authorized distribution if not the copyright holder; imagine Amazon not being allowed to profit off of sales of e-books.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. A clear restatement of the information given on lines 20-23, making it correct.

Answer choice (E): This idea is heavily implied by the passage, but not explicitly said, and thus can't be known to 100% certainty. As the question stem allows for no doubt, we need an answer choice that can be known with 100% certainty based upon the information in the passage.
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 sdb606
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#84383
I understand D, but why is A wrong? "Copyright laws allow completely unrestricted use..." means you are allowed to post documents online without requiring a password, which is true. The LSAT is supposed to be very precise, right? For A to be wrong, it would have to say, "MANDATE completely unrestricted use of any document..."

If something is allowed, it doesn't mean I have to do it. I don't have to grant completely unrestricted access to my documents. If A is true, I would still be able to password protect my documents without violating copyright laws.
 Jeremy Press
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#84404
Hi sdb,

You're only talking about the owner's use of their own copyrighted documents (i.e. their right to allow that document to be viewed), whereas the notion of "use" in answer choice A would cover anyone's use of the document (both the owner and anyone who comes across it). Current copyright law, according to the passage, doesn't allow a document user to navigate to a page where the author has placed the document and then use it for anything they want to use it for. As an example, one very clear thing that a user cannot do with a document placed online (even if the author doesn't include a password) is print the author's document, make copies of it, then distribute (or sell) those copies to other people. This language in the passage makes that clear: "current copyright laws give owners of intellectual property the right to sue a distributor of unauthorized copies of their material even if that distributor did not personally make the copies." That's what makes answer choice A incorrect here.

I hope this helps!

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