With respect to Science 2.0 I have a question. How do we “feel” about using our ability to find papers for others whose institutions don’t have access to those papers? Specifically, let’s say my institution does not have a subscription to Nature Biotechnology but my friend’s institution does. Is it o.k. to have them get me an electronic copy of the paper? Is this so different from requesting a reprint? To those at Nature – does this ability to “share” a subscription impact the business model of library subscriptions? I am sure this has been talked about exhaustively somewhere so if anyone could point me to those discussions that would be great. In the mean time I have several papers I need to e-mail my friends for.
Cheers
Yes, it is different from requesting a reprint, because the author has bought the reprints (or PDF reprints). Papers are published according to the licence or copyright terms of the publisher, which the author signs before publication, so the author of the paper should know the answer to your question, depending on the publisher of the journal in which it was published.
Maxine – you are, of course, correct that the author of the paper has certain rights to redistribute their work. However, I wonder about the distribution of papers by others. I believe it is one thing to use your library to do and inter-library loan (a common way of getting papers/books your library does not have on hand) vs. asking a friend to get the paper for you. In the first case the journals likely can track how often articles are distributed using that method, but in the second case there is no ability to track. Does sharing of a literature resource happen very often?
I feel fine about it, under certain circumstances.
First is, ask the author for a reprint when it’s at all possible, and it nearly always is. But if you could have worked at the other institute in question, and you have a friend there who passes you a copy for your personal information, which is not going to lead to any measurable financial gain for you, I can’t see anyone bothering to sue you over it.
U.S. copyright law specifies that infringement can lead to imprisonment for “not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500.” There is also a concept of the violation having to be willful and for private financial gain.
I do wonder if someone will be made an example of, someday, though, particularly in the light of all the issues that have recently been discussed here about libel and the variability of different laws worldwide.
I have always thought sharing a PDF with a limited number of people was completely within the “fair use” realm of US copyright law. Of course, I’m not even close to a lawyer. I can copy a music CD for a friend legally (fair use), but I cannot digitally share it with a zillion people online. So, in my mind, it’s perfectly fine to ask your friend to provide a PDF from their library. But posting a PDF in a way that makes it easy for the entire world to download has crossed the line.
Libel is different from copyright, in that copyright (or a license) is a specific contract signed by author and publisher. The author has agreed the terms and conditions, therefore is aware of what he/she has signed . What he/she then might do in terms of redistribution is done with that unequivocal knowledge. Libel is an action that is taken by someone not the author of the content, who has taken offence at what the author has written. This is a much greyer area as author and/or publisher may be unaware or have failed to anticipate this action.
There are, of course, certain informal resources that exist to share articles. This very post, in fact, has been copied to such a resource.
I can copy a music CD for a friend legally (fair use)
Oh, this is definitely not “fair use” everywhere! I keep seeing it explicitly mentioned as something that is not allowed. (But playing the CD for your friends when they visit is different still)
Copyright is it’s own beast and thus lots of the CC (creative commons) licencing and much of the Open Access debate. But, regardless of the “contract” between the creator of the content (author) and the distributer (publisher) there is the contract between the distributor and the end users (i.e. libraries)and that is the one that can most easily be circumvented. Is this something that can be monitored? Will publishers (if they don’t already) limit the number of downloads of an article by any one institution? Or is this not an issue since the number of subscribers has not changed too much?
Hi Craig,
IANAL (and not speaking per se as an employee of NPG, but as an interested observer), but for a non-digital case that might provide perspective on the legality of this type of paper sharing, you might want to look at American Geophysical Union v. Texaco. (For a summary and analysis see http://books.google.com/books?id=qBgWLxYWvtgC&pg=PA218) In short, scientists at Texaco were photocopying articles from several journals published by the American Geophysical Union. The AGU sued and Texaco claimed fair use. The district court ruled against Texaco (e.g. not fair use), and the decision was upheld on appeal. One of the questions the court evaluated was the effect of the market and economic harm. The district court ruled that there did not need to be actual economic harm, merely that the copying could “adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work”. Part of this evaluation hinged on whether there was a a “convenient and reasonably priced procedure by which [the defendant] could obtain the necessary copies”. Not sure if this was the type of discussion you were looking for.
On the other hand, some economists (such as Stan Liebowitz in ‘Copying and Indirect Appropriability: Photocopying of Journals’) have argued that the ability to photocopy journal articles actually enhances the market for journal articles and library subscriptions. Leibowitz has complicated reasons why he feels his argument does not apply directly to digital goods such as mp3s, but the idea that providing the ability to copy an article actually adds value to the article that can be recouped by the publisher is very interesting.
Thanks Hilary.
I would love to read Mr. Liebowitz’s article, but it is $14 for me to download. Is this reasonable? I don’t know, I haven’t read but the first page (listed for free). So, if you have a copy could you please send me one (even electronically). . . :)
@Eva — Yup I stand corrected, it’s not fair use, as Chris Miller on friendfeed pointed out to me as well. But I did some poking around and I believe what I’m talking about is the “Audio Home Recording Act” that I was thinking of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act#Exemption_from_infringement_actions Specifically, section 1008 which says, “No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright… based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.” In the wikipedia article, they give the interpretation of this which I had been told a while ago, “Private, noncommercial copies by consumers using ‘digital audio recording devices’ are explicitly protected by §1008. The Senate report defines noncommercial as ‘not for direct or indirect commercial advantage’, offering examples such as making copies for a family member, or copies for use in a car or portable tape player.”
Sorry, didn’t do the links correctly: Audio Home Recording Act
Section 1008
Of course, this seemingly has nothing to do with PDFs and copyright, but that’s the guiding principle I had in my mind. (In line with the original question of how we “feel” about sharing PDFs.)
suelibrarin on friendfeed made a good point that the Terms of Service (TOS) for the institutional subscription are what is being violated.
I absolutely agree that what is in violation is likely the Terms of Service (TOS). And, for now, I believe that the frequency of these violations is few enough that there is no “real” financial impact. However, how long till we see a “Napster” for written works (journals or books). What will be the impact of Google Scholar and the Open Access movement on how people perceive the ability to share articles? Note – it is not the change in legal status or TOS but what could be the long term impact based on perception.
The fact that Texaco was a commercial enterprise had significant bearing on the ruling to which Hilary points. Claims that Fair Use has been overstepped have considerably greater hurdles to overcome when the use is not commercial and for purposes of education, research or scholarship.
Does anyone know of a similar case involving a non-commercial entity (nonprofit, university or similar)?
As Heather has pointed out over at the FF thread, this discussion started here (thanks Craig) and with that, may I share this.
I carried out a smallish survey (a random ‘n’ of 12 from my own globally based scientists/researchers/librarians database) in April/May 2007 and the most relevant comment that came in that is relevant to this post reads as follows:-
Like most librarians, I am a proponent of the Open Access movement, though I try to be understanding of the scientists who are wary of it, fearing that quality will be jeopardized (at least I think that’s their main objection). My support of it is partly because copyright is an irritating business, “fair use” being open to interpretation the way it is, and partly because it seems only fair that research paid for with public funds should be available to the public without further cost or barriers.
Institutional repositories are only sort of a good idea in that they make documents very scattered and not necessarily easy for folks to find – though I know there are portals that list numerous open access sites. PubMed Central is big enough to be very useful, especially for the biomedical community.
It doesn’t seem right that scientists shouldn’t be allowed to distribute PDFs, considering how much they’re paying for the privilege of publishing, and that they have to pay exorbitant amounts for paper reprints. Though I try to stick to interlibrary loan (easy for me since I run a library and can use DOCLINE and OCLC, which most probably don’t have direct access to), I occasionally also need to beg from authors and know that they are probably going outside the bounds of strict legality when they send me a PDF.
Anyway, I send out my copyright notices and post the obligatory signs, but I have no time or inclination to play copyright policeperson.
Thanks Graham, it is great to have a response from the librarian side of the discussion. This also means that now I need to get on FF.
FF is F.A.B. You should give it a twirl.
Just got on to FF, and am loading up on people to follow. Next, to integrate my NN and FF and FB and Twitter.