At 03:25 PM 1/24/2003 -0800, Tyler Ochoa wrote:
>As far as the consumer, the Supreme Court ruled in the Betamax case (Sony
>v. Universal) that consumers had a fair use right to use a VCR for
>timeshifting purposes. The Court did NOT rule that consumers had a fair
>use right to keep the taped program after it had been viewed once. The
>fact that many people do so doesn't make it legal, and I would be
>extremely surprised if any court were to rule that "librarying" by an
>individual was a fair use.
If Tyler is correct about "librarying" not qualifying as a fair use, I wonder whether there might be implications for the kinds of "visual resources" collections kept by both academic departments (i.e. art history departments) and individuals. Here, typically, works created for use in specific courses are catalogued and kept for potential use at other times. Concurrently, they form a repository of catalogued images that may be used for research or for ad hoc use in lectures.
While many images are obtained by license from vendors, many more are merely photocopied from books. Were schools required to photocopy for specific situations and then dispose of the copy, their educational mission would be severely undermined.
I've heard of one department being forced to obtain permission for every use of every image. This department, if forced to continue this process will die an uncomfortable death. I can just imagine the lead-time required to obtain permission for a single course -- two or three years in advance seems appropriate. Among the consequences are the inability to teach about contemporary art and the inability to plan for hiring faculty.
In educational cases and for educators as individuals "librarying" must be accepted as a fair use. Anyway, isn't "librarying" a kind of time-shifting also?
Robert Baron
robert[_at_]studiolo.org
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