Imbedded in Laura Gasaway's response, below, is the oft-made assumption that copying "photographs from books to create slides" for educational use does not constitute fair use. This notion follows from the wrongheaded educational guidelines that prohibit the massing of image collections and which prohibit the multiple use of the same reproduction in repeat situations. Currently proposed guidelines that apply to the use of digital images in educational institutions, specifically those images that are used to support the teaching of history, art and architecture history, similarly refuse to acknowledge the that these materials should be able to be fairly used, especially since 1) most have never been marketed as potential resources for these collections and 2) in most cases the institution already owns the volume from which the image derives.
If such guidelines were to be given the force of law, one must consider the consequential damage they would inflict on educational institutions and their mission. If, as the currently proposed CONFU guidelines for the use of digital images in education seem to propose, after a defined length of time such "fair use" images were no longer permitted, considerable harm would be done to a vital sector of our educational and humanistic traditions. The inability to use currently collected images, the inability to afford obtaining license to use such images, the inability to maintain license to hold vast inventories of research collections, will no doubt have a corrosive effect on education. The result will not, cannot be in the public interest.
If owners of intellectual property in images wish to claim this territory, they should do so by supplying a product that is superior to the poor quality images currently placed in such visual resources collections at a competitive price (which I think they can do), and not by forcing slide and image collections to toss out their collected intellectual resources. Such a program would result in a modern equivalent of burning books -- but here not destruction for ideological motives, but, rather, for subsequent economic gain.
While one must admit that teaching and research might be better served when vast numbers of high quality images are available electronically through license, such collections will no doubt exist only by virtue of the continual renewal of rights. Large scale research collections, built over many decades, collections which hold hundreds of thousands of images will no longer be financially feasable to maintain under these conditions.
On 10/31/96, L. Gasaway <laura_gasaway[_at_]unc.edu> wrote:
> > Section 110(2) of the Copyright Act permits the display of a work > in the course of transmission of distance learning if certain conditions > are met: > > 1) Nonprofit educational institution, > 2) The transmission of the display is part of systematic > instruction, > 3) Reception is in a classroom or other place normally > devoted to instruction. > > The display itself is not considered a reproduction or > distribution under the Act. However, having made copies of the > photographs from books to create the slides is reproduction. If the > slides were purchased, however, there is no difficulty with using them > for distance learning under the current law. > > Under Confu guidelines for distance learning dealing with > performances and displays are being developed and are virtually complete. > They tend to be posted on various web sites including the one maintained > by Georgia Harper at the University of Texas. > > Lolly > *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* > > Laura N. Gasaway phone: 919-962-1049 > Director of the Law Library & fax: 919-962-1193 > Professor of Law email: laura_gasaway[_at_]unc.edu > Law Library, CB # 3385 > University of North Carolina > Chapel Hill, NC 27599 > > > On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Susan M. Zvacek wrote:
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