Letter to the Editor

The quotation in the Brookes' article^{1 from the
Dainton Report that it is legally inadmissible to make a profit on photocopying
material in copyright seems to imply that it is always legal for non-profit
organizations to photocopy without the permission of copyright holders.
This is undoubtedly a variant on the notion that, in the UK and elsewhere,
the financial status of the library automatically determines if the doctrine
of 'fair dealing' ('fair use' in the US) can be relied on. For example,
Section 7 of the Copyright Act, 1956 and the Copyright (Libraries) Regulations,
1957, permits the making of a single copy of a single article from any
one periodical to any person requiring it 'for purposes of research or
private study' (and for no other purpose), provided he signs an undertaking
to that effect2. Exemptions to
the authors' or publishers' rights in other nations adhering to the Universal
Copyright Convention are more severely limited. Regardless of any limitations
on infringement in the current Copyright Regulations, it is certain that
many more copies of copyrighted articles are made under conditions that
do not adhere to the principles and rules of 'fair dealing' than are made
within these boundaries. I believe that the provision of photocopies of
US, German and many UK copyrighted journals is an infringement under the
Universal Copyright Convention. Eventually even the National Lending Library
must face this reality and arrange to pay royalties to publishers for each
copy made by NLL. Certain publishers may choose to ignore NLL infringements
for various diplomatic reasons. But I doubt that a publisher like Williams
& Wilkins, which is presently suing the US National Institutes of Health
(National Library of Medicines) for copyright infringement, would feel
differently about NLL, the Centre de Documentation du Centre National de
la Recherche Scientifique or any other copyright violator, large or small.
In each case the publisher or author suffers financial loss. The fundamental
issue involved in copyright is not the tax status of the infringer or his
agent.}
^{Yours sincerely,}

^{EUGENE GARFIELD}
^{Chairman,
Proprietary Rights Committee,}
^{Information
Industry Association}
^{(added in
2001) E-mail: garfield@codex.cis.upenn.edu}
^{Website:
http://eugenegarfield.org}

^{G. SOPHAR}
^{Secretary,
Committee to Investigate Copyright}
^{Problems Affecting
Communication in Science}
^{and Education,
Inc.}

^{Institute for
Scientific Information,}
^{325, Chestnut
Street,}
^{Philadelphia,}
^{Pa. 19106, USA.
10th
September 1970}

^{1. Back
to Text BROOKES, B. C.}
^{Photocopies v. Periodicals, Cost-effectiveness in the special library.}
^{Journal of Documentation, 26, 1 March 1970, p. 22-9.}

^{2. Back
to Text PARKER, R. E.}
^{'Photocopying practices in the United Kingdom.'}
^{Study for Committee of Experts on the Photographic Reproduction of Protected
Works, Unesco/BIRPI, Paris, 1-5, July 1968, p.
5}

ASLIB PROC. 22(11) p.570, 1970