Re: Coursepacks-outsourcing online distribution

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
>
> The Sixth Circuit also (if I recall correctly) relied on the assumption
> that MDS's coursepacks harmed PUP by depriving them of a license fee ...
> an analysis that the dissent rightly pointed out amounts to a circular
> argument, since if the copying was fair use to begin with, there would
> have been no entitlement to a license fee.

If I may quote from a copy of the newsletter sent out by the AAP following the MDS decision. This is from a letter released in Washington, DC November 11, 1996, entitled "Publishers Win Important Fair Use Victory":

Paragraph 3, 2nd sentence:

   ...
   Judge Nelson rejected MDS's argument that it was "fair use" to copy    and sell substantial excerpts of copyrighted works for educational    purposes without seeking permission or paying licensing fees to the    copyright holders...".
End of quote.

What I was always told, and what I accept as proper to "fair use" is a minimal use of copyrighted material which must meet the four basic factors stated in the US copyright law. What the quote above notes is the word "substantial". Quite literally, we have been lead to understand that to copy anything in its entirety is NOT "fair use". Therefore, even if what we were seeking to print under "fair use" were a 17-syllable haiku, "fair use" could be denied, inasmuch as even though the piece was incredibly short, the right to print all 17 syllables was not ours to determine, but would have to be cleared through a publisher or authorized entity - unless it managed to fall under still more guidelines which might make it eligible for copying. Nevertheless, even under additional guidelines, the intent is that "fair use" is not to cover "substantial" copying of published material.

Barb

Barbara Ruhmann
Text Buyer
UCD Bookstore
University of California, Davis
Phone 530-752-5538
Fax 530-752-4791
http://www-bookstore.ucdavis.edu/
<brruhmann[_at_]ucdavis.edu> Received on Fri Apr 23 1999 - 16:32:29 GMT