making audiotapes for published, copyrighted books

Carole,

A teacher just sent me an e-mail that raised copyright questions, and I'm e-mailing you in the hopes that you know the answer without researching it and will e-mail it to me. Also, I sent this to the organization I found you had e-mailed to about a copyright question.

The teacher plans to have students make audiotapes of publised children's books, and then loan to teachers at our school through the library. I replied to her with what I think about legality of this, which is not soundly based on knowledge unfortunately:

"Legally, I don't think the library can keep copies of audiocassettes for books that you do not have copyright permission to tape. Getting that involves asking the copyright holder and waiting for a reply back.

I think doing these audiotapes is a great idea; if I were you, I would make tapes of the books that I thought would work well, then ask for copyright permission. If denied, I think you could still use it, although that may be wrong. I know it could not go through the library for checkout. I really doubt that you could make duplicate copies of it."

Thanks for any help you can give me with this.

Sharon Heim
Librarian, Silver Ridge Elementary School Silverdale, WA
<sharonh[_at_]cksd.wednet.edu> Received on Fri Jan 07 2000 - 19:04:11 GMT