That's awesome.

The internets never let us down.

I loff it.

William Saunders shall be the Obi-Wan to my Luke in the ways of the Crotchet. I hope he will accept my request for teachings.

At the risk of being as pedantic as Sanders himself surely will be, there is a legal difference between republishing some text, and asking to be sent a single copy of a text. For example, the copyright holder could send the text. Also, copying for individual purpose (not publication) is surely always fair use.

Great joy. Thank you.

When Nick Mamatas says
also, copying for individual purpose (not publication) is surely always fair use.
I hope he is not referring to the US legal term. In US law, fair use is determined by four aspects, of which purpose is one. However, passing one or even two of the tests is not enough. Even if we accept that the purpose is ... educational? public service? Anyway, if we accept that the purpose is OK, there is still the fact that he wants the entirety of the article (and, yes, courts have ruled that the article is the work for these purposes, so even if the article is only a small portion of the journal, copying the whole article (without written consent) is still infringement) and the fact that passing along the article will lose Locus potential revenue. That is, the fellow has the option of subscribing, which is potential revenue, or getting the copy, which isn't. So it fails two of the four tests. And since the material in question is a commercial item (fourth test), I doubt very much that any judge would call that fair use.
Of course, Mr. Sanders may have written permission from the copyright holder to get such a copy, in which case there is no legal question. Or he may have meant to imply that the person should get such permission before sending it. Or something.
Or, of course, Mr. Mamatas may be using "fair use" just to mean that such use would be fair, and that the law as it exists is unfair, which would be true.

Thanks,
-V.

As I don't see any police officers in my library (or any other library, actually, and we librarians all talk) staking out the copy machines waiting for students looking to photocopy articles, I find this assertion dubious.

Nick, a very good case could probably be made that the reposting of the Helix guidelines was fair use, too. Anyway, really it's the attitude toward copyright in that whole thread, not just that one message...

Considering that (a) the police don't arrest people for copyright infringement, and that (2) publishers, on the whole, aren't dicks who sue random passersby for the fun of it, I would be surprised if anybody bothered to trouble anybody at a library photocopier. Also, at the library that employs me, almost all of the photocopying done is of small amounts of books or personal stuff. At university libraries, where (I would guess) most of the copying done is infringing, there are big signs up saying "don't infringe" so that the university (which is where the money is) is somewhat inoculated against lawsuit. In theory.

Anyway, in the one case I'm aware of where a single article from the copyright owner sued a fellow who copied a single article from a journal to give to a colleague, the copyright owner won. I think the appeal is still in process.

When was the last time somebody actually won a fair-use case in court?

Thanks,
-V.

Regarding the police remark, I was being facetious, honest. And I wouldn't think random passersby would be in any danger from publishers, unless they were wielding a copy machine aggressively.

As for books vs. magazines, I've been told by my ILL department that you can't request more than a chapter without running a lawsuit risk. Just out of curiousity, what kind of library do you work at? I'm in a mid-level university library in Georgia myself.

I think most people don't fight fair use cases in court because they're worried about getting hosed on the legal fees, not to mention time, effort, etc. Safer and cheaper to cave when you get the threatening letter. You need someone with money to fight. I think Nader fought Mastercard for some commercials he did in 2000 that he got sued over. Four years in court before they ruled it fair use.

Can you get flak for trying to make one copy? You certainly can. Tor has full-time editors who live and work outside of New York; more than one of them has found themselves unable to copy one of their authors' novel manuscripts at their local Kinko's without some kind of documentation that they're entitled to do so.

We're not talking about making a dozen copies; we're talking about making one copy to keep on the shelf before you mail the marked-up manuscript to our production people in New York.

The flak one gets at Kinko's is only tangentially related to any legal issue related to copyright or fair use. It generally has a lot more to do with the IQ ceiling Kinko's apparently has as part of its hiring practices. I've been hassled at Kinko's for trying to make photocopies of my own published works, even after showing my ID. (It's not like there are a million Nick Mamatas's out there, and that the others all like to make photocopies of my short stories or magazine articles.)

As far as V's claims, they are based on an incomplete understanding. There is a right to make single copies of copyrighted works by libraries and archives to distribute single copies to users, so anyone wishing to fulfill Sanders's request could do so via a library, provided they follow the description of how to do so without infringing.

Btw, way for every single commenter to ignore the other point I made: that the person who could respond to Sanders's plea could well be the copyright holder.

Sorry, Jeremy; the apprenticeship opening has already been claimed.

First of all, Mr. Mamatas is completely correct (as I hope I said) that under the circumstances, it is possible that the copyright holder could respond, or that someone in communication with the copyright holder could respond, having first got permission from the copyright holder to do so. I just wanted to clear up the more general point.

While I'm at it, the right for a library to reproduce is, according to that statute (and the General Counsel of Harvard University (I don't work at Harvard, but I used to, doing (among other things) copyright permissions work) (which doesn't mean my understanding is complete, far from it, but does mean that I've spent a long time reading about this specific issue (one copy of a journal article for private use) and listening to attorneys talk about it), limited to, um, let's see: The right of reproduction under this section applies to three copies or phonorecords of a published work duplicated solely for the purpose of replacement of a copy or phonorecord that is damaged, deteriorating, lost, or stolen, or if the existing format in which the work is stored has become obsolete [etc, etc] Also, that section explicitly states that it does not exempt the requestor from fair use limits as defined in section 107.

Notwithstanding all that stuff, it's absolutely true that Mr. Sanders could (a) go to any library that has a copy of that issue of Locus and read the article or (2) go to his local library and ask to ILL the article/issue, and almost certainly get it, as a photocopy, free of charge. And, in fact, I think he should. It's a way for him to get what he wants without paying any money, violating any laws, or exposing himself to the public ridicule of our host. If, however, he's asking somebody to scan it in and email it to him, or type it in and email it to him without the permission of the copyright owner, well, that's different.

Does it actually make sense that the library way is legal and the email way isn't? I don't think so. Is it the law? I think it is.

As for Kinko's, my impression is that having lost one lawsuit, they told all their people that they would be fired for violating copyright law but they would never be fired for refusing to copy something because of copyright law. That, coupled with the hiring practices Mr. Mamatas has observes, has led to all kinds of outrageous hassles. On the other hand, if our laws were clear and sensible, it might be easy to teach a Kinko's employee what infringes and what doesn't.

Thanks,
-V.

Sorry, Nick, it's true, but it's just not a very entertaining point.

Also, the request is phrased as being directed to either someone with a subscription or "access to a copy". Which to me doesn't sound like he had Charles Brown (or Nick Gevers, or whoever) in mind.

Me, if I were in Sanders' shoes, I would just go to a bookstore. (In fact I have been, and have done.) But given earlier comments on the Helix ng, it would seem this is in general something Sanders for whatever reason either can't or doesn't do.

He has posted a long response in the newsgroup as to why it is okay for him to do this, but the guideline reproduction was not okay. Apparently because he just wants one, private copy of it, vs everyone and their grandmother being able to read it on the Asimov's forum. Of course, the fact that Locus gets its revenue from *selling* the reviews (among other things, of course), isn't mentioned at all.

Well, fair play to him for not using any language stronger than "scrotum" this time.

And he's now apparently closed the newsgroup for good (or ill.)