There is a distinction between TEXTbooks and WORKbooks. Almost all
textbooks in schools are reused from year to year. In our district they
were individually numbered and assigned to each student. You had to
return the exact same textbook that you were issued or you had to pay
for it at the end of the term. WORKbooks are designed to be written in
by students. They're almost like a term-long preprinted test that is
designed to be filled out by the students. Workbooks are intended to be
consumable one use items and therefore any infringement is not likely to
be judged "fair use"
As I said before I think that the argument that there is no infringement
will fly much better than the contention that infringement is a "fair
use."
Please no flames about how "fair use" isn't an infringement. I'm saying
that they probably haven't violated any of the exclusive rights granted
by 17USC106. I don't think that they are indemnified by 17USC107.
It's important to see whether there was any sort of special contract agreed to when they bought the workbooks. Using the workbooks more than once might violate the contract, shrinkwrap or not, that was agreed to. There is considerable debate here on the enforceability of copyright-like contract provisions on this listserve, but that won't prevent the publisher from sending legal nastygrams.
Wasn't there a "first sale" case about rebinding books? Certainly paperbacks often used to say that they were sold subject to the condition that they would be sold in no other bindings. Now they often have a pleading note that if they don't have front covers than they were supposedly destroyed and no royalties have been paid.
-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
[mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Samuel Murray
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 3:56 PM
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: Derivative Inquiry
Jason sheperd het geskryf:
> A preschool daycare buys age apprpriate workbooks for its students,
> removes the pages and puts them in plastic in a binder (the binder has
> all pages, cover, title page, etc) so that the teachers can work with
> each student using a dry-erase marker on the plastic.
It is quite commonplace in ZA schools to reuse the same printed text books every year (if the syllabus is the same). At the start of a new school year, a student receives a book which had been used by a student the previous year, and if there are any notes made in pencil, the current student has the option of erasing it. Making notes in pencil, or making them on a sheet of plastic laid over the paper, is IMO pretty much the same thing.
Samuel
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