QUOTE(kabbymoh @ May 30 2008, 01:18 PM)
Re copying of library books: The trouble with the one "chapter or 5%" (or however much percent) policy is that sometimes one chapter is less than or more than that percentage limit. This is another reason why the law needs to be revised: to make it clearer and more definitive how much of a library book a student can photocopy. Perhaps it has already been revised in this regard? I don't know; I am no expert on copyright law.
The guidelines are clear. They go into great detail as to how much and of what kind of copying one can and cannot be done. There is no reason to revise the law.
QUOTE
The libraries I've used to photocopy stuff have always made a distinction between my own copy and the library's copy. If I brought a book in and said it was my personal copy and I needed to copy part of it at a higher resolution or with larger letters, I could photocopy more than 1 chapter if I wanted to. But I could not photocopy more than one chapter of the same book if it was the library's copy. This is why I stated, and will continue to insist that the law needs to be clearer on scanning/copying personal copies of books for personal use.
Well, the problem here is that you're assuming a reason for the library staff not objecting to copying a book you own. It's a question of liability. If you photocopy your own book, you're liable. If you photocopy their copy, you and they are jointly liable. The same would be true at the photocopy shop in the High Street. If you went in and photocopied a whole book, they wouldn't care. But, if you gave them the book and asked them to photocopy it, they'd ask to see your copyright permission. (They may not, but they then would be liable.) QUOTE(kabbymoh)
My argument is, if you're unlikely to be prosecuted (end up in court) as long as you are not redistributing it, then why make it illegal in the first place? It doesn't make sense. It's my book: why shouldn't I be able to scan it for my own use?
Well, it's your book, but not your copyright. Unless it really is your book Prejudice in Harry Potter, in which case you do have copyright. (Although an author usually assigns that to a publisher.) You can do with that copy of your book whatever you want, except use it to make another copy of that book, because then you'd have two copies and not one; and you only paid for one.
The argument that something should be legal if one isn't likely to be caught is fallacious. What does that have to do with it? If I print counterfeit money in my home, am I allowed to if I say it was for personal use only as I like to use "real" money when I play Monopoly? No, no. The Mint has a monopoly on the printing of currency. The book one scans, photocopies or otherwise duplicates is a counterfeit.
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Please don't force me to start coming on here and calling you a liar. I don't want to have to go that far. For the record, I've never seen a "scanned" page of any of the HP books on the Lexicon website and I don't think there is one. Information from the books might have been paraphrased and direct quotes have been published [...] but for heaven's sake, we are talking about scanned pages here! Please don't change the subject and try to pass it off as a valid argument.
What are you talking about? If you are going to accuse me of lying, you need to quote the appropriate passage and explain why it is a falsehood or a misrepresentation. The Lexicon staff scanned all nine books and used them to created the website and the book. Scanning = copying, that's a required activity in proving copyright infringement. Using those copied books to upload information to the website and to compose a book invalidates any plea that the illicit copies were for personal and private use only.
QUOTE(kabbymoh)
I am not saying it was right of the staff to pass the files amongst themselves, but they could also argue in a court of law that it was still for use in their research (as a collective unit of researchers on one research project: the Lexicon). And it will depend on the "discretion" of the judge to decide on the degree of criminality of their actions in
A. scanning the books in the first place when scanning is forbidden.
AND
B. simply owning said scanned copies.
There is no proof anywhere that they distributed the files for free or for profit to other people, so they could still argue that it was for personal use. I'm not saying that the argument would get them anywhere, especially if simply owning the scanned copies is a prosecutable offence.
Where are you getting these terms "criminality" and "prosecutable offence"? That's not in the Copyright Act. And, no, the "team" cannot argue it was for personal use. Since when is a team working on a public project engaged in a private and personal endeavour? And this team lives in four different states, so moving those files about constitutes distribution.
QUOTE(kabbymoh)
Where the issue of the legality of the Lexicon book is concerned, the existence of those scanned copies is completely irrelevant...Once again, it is like changing the subject and trying to pass it off as a valid argument. But no decent judge will be hoodwinked by such a strategy.
Well, then you'll have to take this up with Judge Patterson, won't you? He didn't think it was irrelevant, nor did he feel hoodwinked. Indeed, he asked for clarification as to how many of the nine books hand been scanned in toto. It is proof of copying. And that's necessary to show copyright infringement. The implication that cutting and pasting was used in composing the book goes to the argument that JKR's text was taken and altered slightly to form the lexicon entries. That too was of interest to the judge who asked Falzone about the lack of quotation marks. It's logical to assume quotation marks would be missing if one was merely revising JKR's words and not quoting them.
"And I'm not even French!"
~davidenglish, the punchline from a tongue-in-cheek post which is now being used out of context, sans punchline, on a certain crazy quotes website. I think it goes well with everything I post.
May 29 2008, 06:10 PM
). It's been a while since I ventured up to that sacred place called the Bodleian copy room, but I don't think they allow you to photocopy rare books at all. I think you would have to make a note of which pages you wanted and then get a member of staff to do it for you. Also, an interesting thing about the Bod is that, unlike Cambridge's University Library, the Bod does not allow readers to take out books. You have to go there and read it and leave it there, regardless of whether you're a professor or a student. A few years ago I heard of a student who almost had his status suspended for trying to take a book out of the Bod.
