Copyright Study Group Seeks Comments 45
jeh0bu writes "The Section 108 Study Group, a group of copyright experts, has been meeting to discuss Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is focusing on preservation of websites and access to digital copies of library materials. Representatives of Internet Archive, including Brewster Kahle, went to the group's public roundtable sessions in March. Google did not register to attend the roundtable sessions even though the findings of the Section 108 Study Group may impact Google's Library Project. The Section 108 Study Group seeks written comments through April 17, 2006, according to this Federal Register notice."
Section 108 (Score:5, Informative)
1. Libraries can reproduce (copy) at most one instance of a copyrighted book if they promise to acknowledge copyright and not make money off it.
2. Copyrighted books/sources can be copied up to 3 times only for archival, preservation and research purposes; digital format archives/copies may not be distributed.
3. Copies of lost/damaged/obsolete material can be made up to 3 times if no actual manufacturer copy can be obtained and the copies are not made available to the public.
4. If a user requests an interlibrary loan or wants a material that cannot be obtained at a reasonable price, they may make a copy of a small section of the material, if the material becomes property of the user (e.g., too much late fees), and the library displays a copyright warning.
5. The library may not reproduce, display, or distribute work that is in its last 20 years of copyright if the work is still commercially circulated, a copy can be obtained at a reasonable price, or the copyright owner makes a special notice.
Keep in mind this only applies to text: "The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section do not apply to a musical work, a pictorial, graphic or sculptural work, or a motion picture or other audiovisual work other than an audiovisual work dealing with news."
And the UK is still doing something similar (Score:3, Informative)
For our boys and girls in the UK, don't forget that the Gowers review [hm-treasury.gov.uk] is still accepting responses to their call for evidence, and covers (inter alia) the same sort of questions.
Re:Section 108 (Score:1, Informative)
But they're not making the books as such available to the public except where (a) they're out of copyright (so this law doesn't apply), or (b) they have been given explicit permission to do so by the publisher (so this law doesn't apply).
Where books are in copyright and no permission has been given to use them, Google are only giving the public access to the fact that a book contains a given search term, and they are using a snippet (literally just one or two lines of text) to illustrate the context. Anyone who wants to actually read the book must go and find a physical copy to read.
It seems very, very unlikely that what Google is doing will be considered copyright infringement by any sane interpretation of the law.