The Management of Intellectual Property

Bennett, Scott, Computers in Libraries

I want to address the management of intellectual property rights. Before I do that, I want to talk about the management of physical property -- the books and journals our libraries own. We will always have much more physical property in our care than intellectual property rights. And our interest in managing such rights arises chiefly from the challenges we face as managers of physical property.

So I will start with books and journals and with some ideas about an electronic document delivery service and an electronic reserves service. I will present these ideas as a kind of intellectual shell game, posing a series of questions about three common library scenarios. I ask you to consider whether each of the activities I will describe is legal under the 1976 Copyright Law. Critical to your answers will be the location of not one but of two peas. I will not describe these peas just yet, but only say they exist. Are you ready? (As we play, please remember that this is a game and not legal advice.)

Intellectual Shell Game #1

SCENARIO ONE: A biology professor needs to read an article in a current journal to which her university library subscribes. Now watch the shells!

* Is it legal for that professor to send a university-paid graduate student to the library to photocopy the article for her?

* Is it legal for the library to photocopy the article for the professor, using university-paid staff employed exclusively for the purpose of responding to requests of this sort?

* Is it legal for the library to use its staff to scan this article digitally (instead of photocopying it), put the resulting data file on a server, and notify the biology professor that she can transfer the data …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: The Management of Intellectual Property. Contributors: Bennett, Scott - Author. Magazine title: Computers in Libraries. Volume: 14. Issue: 5 Publication date: May 1994. Page number: 18+. © 2008 Information Today, Inc. COPYRIGHT 1994 Gale Group.

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