Re: Coursepacks

On Tue 23 Jun 1998 Edward Barrow <edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> In recent negotiations for renewal, both the universities and the
> copyright holders agreed that the kind of contrived avoidance
> scheme being described in this thread was unacceptable.

Calling them "avoidance schemes" rests on the assumption that something is being avoided in the first place. One could as easily call the publisher's actions "contrived revenue-raising schemes".

To my thinking, if an enterpreneur sets himself up as a coursepack publisher, accepts instructions from the professor, gathers the materials, lays them out, runs them off, then sells them to the professor at a modest profit, then that individual should clear the copyrights.

On the other hand, if the professor puts the original materials on reserve in the library (or simply puts a bibliography on reserve) and lets the students copy or take notes as they see fit, then the use is fair and no copyright need be cleared.

Anything in between these two cases can be argued either way, but the closer the situation comes to the first case, the more likely it is that the use is not fair. The closer the situation comes to the second case, the more likely it is that the use is fair.

Tim Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Fri Jun 26 1998 - 14:19:35 GMT