From: Winston Tabb <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 03:07:38 +0000

The answer to the question is obviously yes.  Winston Tabb


----- Original Message -----
From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:52:18 -0500

I endorse Joe's distinction here.  But I note that much of the
national discourse around piracy in other media makes no such
distinction - assuming, basically, that every pirated work is a lost
sale and seeing no difference in whether the "pirated" work was sold
or distributed for free.

It would seem like academic institutions would be the most suited to
something like a fair-use defense of what Joe calls unauthorized
access or unauthorized distribution.  But the next question is: if
fair use is valid for educational purposes, can you have fair use of
academic literature for educational purposes by non-academic
institutions?  Google is one example, but the more recent closure of
library.nu is another.  The so-called "pirates" are pushing things in
one direction; the maximalists who brand them as such are pushing in
another.

Time will tell how the cultural, legal, and technical frameworks shake
out.  But for now, it is important to have some distinction in order
to say where we stand.

Best,
Sean

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 6:20 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 08:08:35 -0700
>
> I recommend that this thread make some distinctions about different uses of copyrighted material, as the word "piracy" can be a blunt instrument.
>
> I personally only use the term "piracy" when someone uses copyrighted material without permission and then attempts to monetize this in some way.  An example of this would be local coursepack companies.  There probably is a lot less "piracy" of this kind than many would suppose.
>
> I use the term "unauthorized use" instead of "piracy" when there is no direct monetization.  A professor who takes a copy of a paper he or she has written that was published by a traditional publisher and puts that paper on a personal Web site may indeed be an unauthorized user. Obviously, this varies with publishers' policies and how one construes the privileges under fair use.
>
> There is a third undefined category where the monetization, if any, is indirect.  Google's mass digitization project is an example here. Google was not planning to sell the copied texts, but it benefits from those texts in it data-mining initiatives.  Of course, here again fair use may plan a role.  Leave that one to the judges.
>
> Most of the time when people talk about piracy, they really mean (in my terms) unauthorized use.  I am not making a case for unauthorized use, but there are differences here that should be acknowledged.