On 1-Aug-09, at 6:15 PM, Arthur Sale wrote:
Charles
The Australian Act makes no mention of who does the reproduction.
Whether I make a reproduction/copy (say electronic by email, or
photocopy my manuscript or the journal, or some other form of copy)
of my article to give to my PhD student, or he/she does it personally
from a CD I lend or a journal issue they borrow, makes no difference.
I can even ask an administrative assistant to make the copy for me
and deliver it. What matters is that the copy is for the purpose of
research or study. Exactly the same applies to a remote researcher
who asks me for a copy of my article.
Comment:
In Canada, a decision in recent years in which the Supreme Court
sided with the Law Society of Canada on a similar matter against CCH,
supports this view. In brief, under Canadian law, if the user has
rights under fair dealing, a library as intermediary has the right to
provide services to help the user to make use of such rights. The
reprint button is a similar matter. While I am not an expert on
copyright law, my reading is that this not only supports author re-
distribution of their works (arguably common law, since as Stevan and
others have pointed out this has been common practice for many
years), but also automating responses to e-print requests, at least
in Canada.
Copyright law is evolving at an international level. It is important
for all groups with a stake to ensure their voices are heard,
including academics and librarians. Otherwise, we may end up with
laws that do not suit our needs at all, such as laws that forbid
tampering with technological protection measures (TPMs), even for
legal purposes, one of the nastier provisions of last year's attempt
at reform of Canadian copyright law.
Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.
Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
Received on Sun Aug 02 2009 - 19:28:22 BST