FotoDave@aol.com
Date: 03/06/01-05:24:35 PM Z
What I read is that the copying is general considered "fair use" (note that
someone also mentioned that this is just a rough guideline, there is no fixed
definition for it) if:
- it is used for educational purpose
- the person who makes the copying does not derive any profit from the copying
- the copied materials is less than 10% of the total work
If you go to Kinko's, you will notice that they are very strict about
copyright. One of the reasons is that they lost one big case for copying
course packs for a school which contains lots of copyrighted material.
Kinko's tried to defend by using the above guidelines. The court decided that
while the school is educational and did not make any profit from the copying,
Kinko's certainly did, so Kinko's lost the lawsuit and had to pay a lot, so
now they are very careful about copyright.
Note also whoever operates the duplicating machine (xerox machine, camera,
etc.) is considered liable, so it doesn't matter whether your school, your
department head, or your teacher tells you to do the copying, if you
physically make the copy, you will be liable if it is determined that
copyright is violated. If you are an amateur, you could probably try to say
that you don't really know, but if you are a professional, the court will
assume that you know better about copyright and you will be liable.
Legal stuffs aside, I personally feel that if there is a good chart or
drawing in a book, it is fine to copy only that if the rest of the book is
not suitable to be used as a textbook for the class, but some instructors
copy whole one or two chapters of a book. I think that is rather unethical
even if it can be covered by the above guidelines. It's just my opinion, of
course.
Dave S
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