Libraries and IT : working papers of the Information Technology Sub-committee of the HEFCs' Libraries Review.

  • Great Britain. Higher Education Funding Council. Information Technology Sub-committee.
Date:
1993
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Libraries and IT : working papers of the Information Technology Sub-committee of the HEFCs' Libraries Review. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    realised, while at the same time permitting the originators and authorised publishers of the materials to obtain a fair reward for and return on their investment, enterprise, management, and skill, which are often very considerable. Without such reward and return, the willingness and ability of authors and publishers to prepare and distribute valuable information and ideas in all their forms must rapidly diminish, to the substantial disadvantage of the public. People who create their own materials and store and reproduce them in this way of course enjoy their own copyrights in what they produce (in both the work itself, literary, graphical or musical, and in the compilations they may create of their own works), but in so far as they use the works of others, either to copy them into and reproduce them from an electronic store, they are using the copyrights owned by the creators and their publishers, and so generally require their authority. And in so far as they draw on compilations (for example, databases and anthologies) made by others, they are using the copyrights in the compilations, and similarly require authority. 1.4 Private electro-copying The facility for users to make under their own control 'electro- copies' of copyright materials creates a new dimension to the problem. Electro-copying, as the process of using a scanner, which may now be a relatively inexpensive piece of machinery, to scan printed materials and to store the text in either character-encoded or image form, has been called, enables copyright materials to be stored and indexed in a database, from which it can be accessed and reproduced at will in either electronic or printed form. It thus offers considerable opportunities for infringement of copyright, both of the 'economic rights' - the rights to commercial exploitation - and of the 'moral rights’ of the author, principally the right to maintain the integrity of the work. Further, it enables materials to be edited and otherwise manipulated - with a high level of sophistication in the case of character encoded materials, but with a considerable facility even in the case of materials stored in image form, so that the text may be changed, the whole or excerpts selected, and annotations and indices added, and the edited and changed materials can be reproduced either singly or in quantity, for example in some form of compilation, for various uses. 1.5 Privately made electro-copies can therefore compete not only with the author's and publisher's copyrights in the printed materials, but also with their own commercial exploitation of the copyright work through electronic media, which may aim at the same market as that supplied by 'privately made' copies. [In this context, ‘private copying' is seen as copying by bodies not primarily engaged in publishing for sale, for example educational institutions and libraries, commercial companies reproducing materials for internal use, and governmental authorities, as well as by private individuals. Such bodies may, of course, charge commercial prices for the materials reproduced]. 1.6 Problem shared with electronic publications Indeed, the process involves the same problems as those involved in the protection and use of commercial electronic publications, which, having been put on the market, are subject to relatively easy private copying of the electronic forms. The various methods of control for both electronic publications and electro- copying may therefore be similar, and it is important not to set precedents for private copying that may then distort the market for commercial electronic publications. 1.7 Different from photocopying In its simplest form, electro-copying may seem to perform a function very similar to photocopying. Thus, it may be used to make a siavish reproduction of the original text, equivalent to a photocopy. However, the added sophistication of the