Clarifying a few copyright points...
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_JHU.EDU>:
>
> Maybe you think a distinction needs to be made, but what makes you
> think the law does? Copyright protects the right to copy, whether
> or not you make it available. If copying without making it
> available is fair use, well, one aspect of that is what the GBS
> lawsuit would determine if it went to trial.
Yes, there was some hope that it would go to trial and settle this,
although there is a chance that it would have answered the question:
"Can a for-profit make copies under these circumstances?" rather than
the library-related question, since U.S. law makes a distinction
between commercial and educational uses. In some of the "fair dealing"
countries some exceptions have been made for some libraries, e.g.
national libraries making copies of that country's digital 'heritage.'
Because 'fair dealing' is less flexible than 'fair use' some national
libraries were not able to do the same archiving that the Internet
Archive does routinely here in the U.S. without changes to their laws.
>
> Libraries do have some exemptions to make archival copies that they
> don't show to anyone or let anyone use, I am unclear on the details
> of when they apply or if they could apply with digital copies
This was one of the topics addressed by the "Section 108 Study Group":
http://www.section108.gov/
... but unfortunately no legislation was passed to address their concerns.
kc
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
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Received on Thu Jul 28 2011 - 13:05:42 EDT