Re: Coursepacks

David Post <postd[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
>
> I can, in good faith, compile (without authorization) a single
> collection of (presumptively copyrighted) material together into
> a coursepack, bring it to the first class, and tell my students
> that they must make a single copy of this compilation for their
> own use in my class -- that, in other words, their own copying of
> this material constitutes fair use. I think this is a fair reading
> of these two cases (not to mention the statute itself) ...

I think so, too. In fact, as I read the statute, it's fair use for YOU, too, not just your students.The problem is, where are you or your students going to get the copying done? If it's at a commercial copy center like Kinko's or MDS, the same problem rears its head again. The copying is fair use for the students, but it's an impermissible commercial use for the copy center. And that's the whole anomaly of the MDS decision. Unless the professor or the student doing the copying owns her own copy machine, how do you get around the fact that a copy center is making money off the copying?

Bob Cumbow
<cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> Received on Sun Jun 21 1998 - 20:59:57 GMT