Copyright Questions and Answers for Information Professionals: From the Columns of Against the Grain

Preface

xi Preface For almost 15 years I have authored the “Copyright Questions and Answers” column for Against the Grain (ATG). It has been a labor of love, and I very much enjoy responding to the questions that librarians, publishers, teachers, and authors raise in my copyright law workshops, submit to me over the telephone, and increasingly—today almost exclusively—send to me via e-mail. I was delighted when Katrina Strauch asked me to turn questions from this column into a book that the journal would publish as the first in a series of books evolving from ATG. She was fortunate to strike an agreement with Purdue University Press to publish the series. I have always felt a responsibility to respond to questions, hoping that I could help fellow librarians and faculty members who struggle to comply with copyright law and have nowhere to go for help. Who knew that these questions would lead to, first of all, the creation of the ATG column, and now this book. My own interest in copyright for librarians and teachers is long and deep. I completed my MLS in 1968 and worked as a librarian in the University of Houston Law Library while I simultaneously attended law school there. In 1973, as I was about to receive my JD degree , Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States,1 was affirmed in a per curiam opinion from an evenly divided U.S. Supreme Court. The first library photocopying case involved a medical publisher suing the National Library of Medicine for photocopying for medical researchers from the publisher’s journals. I felt as if my eyes had been opened, and I knew how I would spend my career—educating librarians, college faculty, and K–12 teachers about copyright. The ATG column is a part of this outreach. 1 487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl. 1973). Preface xii Over the years I have consulted on copyright law with educational institutions and libraries of all types. Recognizing that practicing librarians want guidance and often appreciate bright-line rules, I have tried to strike a balance in my advisement. Guidelines on fair use and best practices are both somewhat controversial, and I believe that both should play a role in helping information professionals , teachers, authors, and publishers make decisions about fair use. Guidelines are not the law, but instead provide guidance as to what in 1976 Congress thought constituted fair use in the classroom, with the educational uses of music, and for interlibrary loan. Two courts have cited the Guidelines on Multiple Copying for Classroom Use with approval and one has rejected them. These opinions are discussed in this text. Other guidelines have been neither the subject of nor mentioned in litigation to date, and best practices have been rejected by one court. In 2009 I was appointed as the only librarian on the Board of Directors of the Copyright Clearance Center (although there have been other librarians on the board in the past). I take this role seriously, speaking up for libraries and the concerns of librarians and library users on that board. • • • This book is arranged by topical chapter, each with a short introduction that defines what the chapter addresses. The introduction is followed by questions and answers grouped by subject within the chapter topic. Chapter 13, “Miscellaneous Issues,” contains questions and answers on subjects that do not fit neatly into any of the other topics. The content of the answers in each chapter has been updated. This book contains an extensive subject index designed to facilitate readers’ access to the answers they seek. As such, it can be used in two major ways: (1) readers are invited to read the entire book, and (2) the book can serve as a reference work for readers to obtain answers to specific questions through use of the table of contents and index. In this book I often refer to the chart I developed many years ago and have updated as the statute changes, “When U.S. Works Pass into the Public Domain” (http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm), a Preface xiii copy of which appears in the appendix to this book. Another useful chart is Peter Hirtle’s “Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States,” which can be found at http://copyright.cornell.edu/ resources/publicdomain.cfm. • • • I am grateful to the many librarians, faculty members, authors, and publishers who have supplied...