RE: Fair use (RE: electronic journals CCC)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> If the "copyright law in itself [n]ever offered very much protection to
> copyright holders," and I agree that that is probably true, then I fail to
> see how permitting ILL/Document delivery in a license would result in
> distribution to "thousands of people with a couple of mouse clicks."

It's not a question of permitting or not permitting ILL -- I don't agree
that licenses should forbid ILL entirely.  My argument is that publishers
are justified in restricting ILL to paper printouts of online articles,
because electronic distribution is so easy.  This is just common sense: if
you mail me a photocopy, I can read it myself and maybe pass it around to
my colleagues.  If you e-mail me an article, I can literally distribute it
to several thousand people within seconds.  I think it's silly at best,
and disingenuous at worst, for librarians to deny that this poses a valid
problem for publishers.

> Surely the wording of the license clause could be tailored to allow
> ILL the way libraries have always done, without encouraging the kind
> of "systematic" distribution you are talking about.

If what you mean by "the way libraries have always done" is "in physical
formats," then that sort of wording is what I find reasonable.  I also
think it's great when publishers allow ILL via electronic means.  But I
understand when they don't.

> When it comes to restriction of access and authentication technology,
> don't publishers/aggregators (at least in academic libraries) actually
> have more control over who reads their material than when it was simply
> available in print to anyone who walked into the library?

Absolutely not.  They may have control over who gets to their content
initially, but unless a contract governs what the user can do with the
content afterwards, they have no control whatsoever over what happens
after that.

Bear in mind that I'm not arguing against ILL, or in favor of excessively
restrictive license terms, or defending greedy or unscrupulous publishers.
I'm saying that it's silly to expect publishers to regard fair use
limitations as serious copyright protection in the electronic realm, and
that they're justified in some of the restrictions (in particular, those
on electronic redistribution) that they put in their licenses.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Electronic Resources/Serials Coordinator
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno
1664 No. Virginia St.
Reno, NV  89557
PH  (775) 784-6500 x273
FX  (775) 784-1328
rickand@unr.edu

"A revolution involves a change in structure;
a change in style is not a revolution."
        -- Karl Marx