From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:48:24 -0500
Copyright law gives specific protections to non-profit educational
institutions that it does not give to, say, for-profit institutions
that are in the education business, like the University of Phoenix.
The important limitation on liability found in Sec. 504(c)(2) is only
one example of many.
Sandy Thatcher
> 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.
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