[HN Gopher] The U.S. Copyright Office requires libraries to lie ...
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The U.S. Copyright Office requires libraries to lie about fair use
rights?
 
Author : colinprince
Score  : 151 points
Date   : 2023-07-05 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
 
web link (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
w3m dump (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
 
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Friendly reminder:
| 
| A government agency isn't a better authority on the law than your
| own lawyers are, if you're rich enough to access the courts.
| 
| The agencies, including the white house, offer one interpretation
| of the law, _and they don 't know your interpretation_. Make it
| expensive for them to disagree with you and they will likely back
| off. But also be prepared to continue that fight in court in case
| they didnt back off. They theoretically have unlimited resources
| but are frugal.
 
| gridspy wrote:
| The difference is subtle
| 
| > One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or
| reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than
| private study, scholarship, or research."
| 
| "[I]s not to be used for any purpose other than" sounds very
| restrictive. However the language from the statute is the
| opposite
| 
| > The fair use of a copyrighted work, ... for purposes such as
| criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple
| copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an
| infringement of copyright.
| 
| This sounds like the opposite. A list of times when fair use is
| OK.
| 
| The article could benefit from further discussion of this subtle
| distinction, as a librarian I think the writer assumes we already
| know exactly why this message is incorrect.
| 
| From my interpretation the message seems to "remove" several of
| the examples in the statute from the message, for instance news
| reporting. I think that is the concern here, along with the
| mandate that libraries then promulgate this subtle
| misinformation.
 
| paulddraper wrote:
| This requirement comes not from the copyright office, but
| straight from the 17 USC 108:
| 
| "(e) The rights of reproduction and distribution...made from the
| collection of a library or archives where the user makes his or
| her request or from that of another library or archives, if the
| library or archives has first determined, on the basis of a
| reasonable investigation, that a copy or phonorecord of the
| copyrighted work cannot be obtained at a fair price, if-
| 
| "(1) the copy or phonorecord becomes the property of the user,
| and the library or archives has had no notice that the copy or
| phonorecord would be used for any purpose other than private
| study, scholarship, or research; and
| 
| "(2) the library or archives displays prominently, at the place
| where orders are accepted, and includes on its order form, a
| warning of copyright in accordance with requirements that the
| Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation."
| 
| The author's issue is primarily with the inconsistency of the law
| itself.
 
| bee_rider wrote:
| It seems like basic CYA text for the libraries?
| 
| > Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and
| archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other
| reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the
| photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose
| other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user
| makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction
| for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user _may_ be liable
| for copyright infringement.
| 
| Emphasis mine. Of course it is possible to commit some sort of
| copyright infringement using a document copied in a library. You
| are being reminded of the fact that you could use this service
| provided by the library to commit a some copyright violation, the
| fact that the library helped you doesn't magically change the
| law.
 
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| It seems to me that there are a few caveats that may explain
| this.
| 
| The first is that the blurb covers _furnishing_ the
| archival/photocopy, not creating the copy itself. This is more
| akin to whether I can give a friend a copy of a book I purchased,
| as opposed to the act of photocopying it myself. That is to say,
| it is okay to provide a photocopied version of a copyrighted
| document, but only under certain usage circumstances as defined
| by fair use doctrine.
| 
| The other aspect may simply be laziness. Perhaps it could be read
| as:
| 
| > [institutions such as] libraries and archives are authorized to
| furnish a photocopy or other reproduction
| 
| Either way, I think "requires libraries to lie" is a bit
| sensationalist.
 
| mrbabbage wrote:
| I realize the headline is designed to be attention-grabbing, but
| "lie" is pretty strong given the warning's actual text.
| 
| Could the warning be better phrased? Almost certainly--it's a
| four-sentence digest, designed for a lay audience, of an
| incredibly complicated area of law (copyright fair use). But the
| warning itself is completely accurate: There are conditions where
| reproducing a copyrighted work (which otherwise infringe's the
| owner's exclusive right of reproduction) is acceptable. And "one
| of these specified conditions" (quoting from the warning) is for
| scholarship. It's not the only such condition!
| 
| To me, this feels like the author is making a mountain out of a
| molehill.
 
| bombcar wrote:
| It sounds to me like this wording is left over from previous
| copyright regimes/laws, where libraries were explicitly allowed
| to do things "against the law" for "private study, scholarship,
| or research" - all of which has been supplanted by fair use and
| Xerox.
| 
| (I'm thinking things like asking the librarian to hand-copy down
| pages from a book in the 1800s or similar.)
 
| crazygringo wrote:
| The headline/interpretation seems incorrect.
| 
| Copying for "private study, scholarship, or research"
| _specifically by libraries_ is permitted by SS108 [1], while fair
| use is permitted by SS107 [2]. These are separate concepts.
| 
| Libraries are not intended for photocopying of materials for all
| possible fair use cases; they're only intended for "private
| study, scholarship, or research" purposes.
| 
| So the sign correctly indicates what's allowed per _library_
| policy; it also correctly indicates you have _additional_ rights
| per _fair use_ policy and warns not to go beyond _those_.
| 
| (A good example is that a teacher can use a _private /school_
| photocopier to make 30 copies of material for classroom use
| according to fair use; but you're not allowed to use the
| _library_ photocopier to make more than 1 copy of anything.)
| 
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108
| 
| [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
 
  | NoZebra120vClip wrote:
  | > A good example is that a teacher can use a private/school
  | photocopier to make 30 copies of material for classroom use
  | according to fair use
  | 
  | I disbelieve that this is the case, for copyrighted material;
  | this is not supported by your citations, and that behavior (30
  | copies in a classroom) seems like a flagrant violation, in
  | fact, and although most teachers wouldn't generally get in
  | trouble with it, most teachers also tend to steer clear of
  | violations like this. A teacher either obtains permission, or
  | uses public domain materials, or finds some other way to convey
  | the information to their students.
  | 
  | In fact I researched this when I was teaching a class, and I
  | wanted to use some copyrighted handouts. I was able to obtain
  | permission from a local blogger to use her article and
  | distribute it to the whole class. In fact, she was very glad
  | that I'd asked. I was less successful in contacting a
  | publishing house overseas and obtaining permission for their
  | stuff. So I didn't copy it.
 
  | dang wrote:
  | Ok, we've appended a question mark to the title, which is a
  | trick we sometimes use to mitigate questionable titles (on
  | otherwise interesting articles).
 
    | gridspy wrote:
    | > Does the U.S. Copyright Office require libraries to lie
    | about fair use rights?
    | 
    | The grammar is bothering me.
    | 
    | Thanks for your moderation either way.
 
      | dang wrote:
      | If you 'hear' it out loud I think it sounds better?
 
        | batshibstein wrote:
        | I'm Ron Burgundy?
 
    | HWR_14 wrote:
    | Might I suggest adding some other mark as well to indicate it
    | was an addition to the title. When I read it, I first assumed
    | the original source had the question mark.
    | 
    | Maybe:
    | 
    | [?]
    | 
    | or
    | 
    | *?*
 
  | treeman79 wrote:
  | My wife's a teacher. School Printer /Photocopier drama was such
  | a stress point for her that her Christmas present was her own
  | high end laser / copy machine.
 
  | londons_explore wrote:
  | But the notice attached to any library-produced copy should
  | therefore presumably refer to the rights of the reader (ie. the
  | member of the public), rather than the library.
 
    | kayodelycaon wrote:
    | It's basically a disclaimer limiting how you can use the
    | library to make copies. You still have fair use, but the
    | library won't copy documents for you outside of their own
    | limitations.
 
    | cvoss wrote:
    | The user is welcome to investigate their own rights on their
    | own time. The government has no interest in that here. The
    | government has a different interest.
    | 
    | The library is furnishing a powerful tool to users: the
    | ability to make copies readily. The government's ability to
    | police or regulate this tool so that it complies with
    | copyright law is extremely limited. The government's options
    | are to ban the tool outright, or to permit the tool while
    | impressing a scary warning upon the user, hoping law-abiders
    | will exercise self-control. "If you do something potentially
    | illegal, then you are potentially liable for something
    | illegal." It's a tautological warning, but it still has an
    | effect. And the way they can force the library to communicate
    | the scary warning to the end user is by conditioning the
    | library's liability on the posting of the warning.
 
      | mindslight wrote:
      | No, the government does not have an interest in creating a
      | chilling effect that goes far beyond the actual law.
      | Rather, it's commercial copyright holders who have that
      | interest, and they lobbied the government to include this
      | scary warning.
 
        | majormajor wrote:
        | The library has an interest in Big Scary Warning because
        | the US has an adversarial legal system which makes it
        | easy for people to cost other people $$$$ on legal fees
        | about stupid shit.
        | 
        | You could get these signs with the following path with no
        | lobbying at all:
        | 
        | 1) Library puts out copier with no signage
        | 
        | 2) Someone makes a bunch of copies of something and
        | starts selling them to people they know
        | 
        | 3) That person gets in trouble
        | 
        | 4) That person gets angry and lawyers up "how was I
        | supposed to know I couldn't do this, they let me use the
        | machine, they need to indemnify me against this!!"
        | 
        | 5) Library wastes money defending this and someone says
        | "ugh let's just put up a stupid sign to deter the fools"
 
        | Dalewyn wrote:
        | Something to keep in mind is that governments in the US
        | govern at the pleasure of the people so governed. "We the
        | people", as it says in the Preamble of the US
        | Constitution.
        | 
        | So if the government has an interest in enforcing
        | copyright, that's because the people (whether or not they
        | are intellectual property holders themselves) told the
        | government to enforce copyright.
 
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
 
| ftxbro wrote:
| In general what if there are laws that contradict so by
| definition you are breaking one of them? Does this create a
| purge-like situation where no law applies and you can do anything
| at will even unrestrained riotous rampage through the city.
 
| cvoss wrote:
| The author has misread the statute. The notice and the statutory
| language from which it derives (Title 17, sec. 108 (d) and (e))
| are about the conditions under which the _library_ is released
| from liability for copyright violations. No statement is made
| about conditions under which the _user_ is released from
| copyright liability.
| 
| Each paragraph in 108 lays out various situations under which
| libraries and archives are permitted to furnish copies without
| liability (without this, no library would dare).
| 
| Paragraphs (d) and (e) are the relevant ones (dealing with one
| component of a larger collection or to an entire work if
| necessary, respectively). Clause (1) of each paragraph describes
| a situation where the copy is to become property of the user
| making the request (so, I walk up to a copy machine, make a copy,
| and take possession of the copy). In this situation, the library
| is released from liability if two conditions hold: a) "the
| library ... has had no notice that the copy ... would be used for
| any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research".
| (Note that this is the source of the quote in the posted notice.)
| Naturally, that condition holds for self-service copy machines.
| b) "the library ... displays prominently ... a warning of
| copyright...". Said warning just recaps 108 (d) and (e).
| 
| I do not find any lie here.
 
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(page generated 2023-07-05 23:01 UTC)