What are the internationally accepted legal aspects of scanning library books and making them available for different services?

What are the internationally accepted legal aspects of scanning library books and making them available through different services?

National laws differ, but what are the acceptable worldwide legal best practices to scan books and make them available to students?

I have understood so far that:

​a) scanning itself is not a problem b) making the scans available for search only - like google-scholar - is also not a problem - I am assuming this is following the google law-suite. c) transformational use - e.g. for blind people - is another allowed utilization for scanned books - as they can be utilized by special software for blind. d) Fair-use - e.g. use for the sole purpose of learning and teaching - should be okay - but seems to be a border case.

Now, what exactly is allowed by the fair-use policy?

Again - I am aware, that national laws differ in this aspect - but are there some common international accepted policies/standards/frameworks?

ChrisZZ

• fair-use

Comments

• mgkrebbs: Even in the U.S., your assumptions presume something that is not settled. Right now there is a (years-long) class action lawsuit against Google for doing (a), and the outcome is not really predictable. Most organizations (e.g. libraries and Hathi Trust) are avoiding doing any scanning of in-copyright (or unclear copyright) works because of the ambiguity.

Answer by M. Alan Thomas II

This is a tricky question because, as you note, national laws differ. The short answer is "There are no globally-accepted guidelines."

Fair use, on which much of this activity relies in the U.S., is a unique construction of U.S. law. Fair dealing and other such systems have notable differences, although some (but not all) countries do have specific statutory carve-outs for education or the blind which may or may not be enforced in practice. International treaties covering these issues may be rejected or signed but ignored by specific countries.

Your assumptions are mostly true for the U.S. but not necessarily true on an international level, and there are no global, 100% solutions.

Questions about best practices are best asked and answered on a country-by-country basis. Legal advice regarding a specific plan, if desired, must be obtained from a lawyer or similar legal practitioner (depending on country).

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Answer by Casey

I doubt you'll have any answers to "What exactly is allowed by the fair-use policy." For the best answers, consult a lawyer. Even they, however, may have trouble as I understand fair-use is a grey area. Believe me, I wish there were an easy answer to this issue, even just in the U.S.

As a librarian and not a lawyer, let me point you to some documents which I found useful when grappling with similar issues:

From OCLC, Triangle Research Libraries Network Publishes Intellectual Property Rights Strategy for Digitization Based on "Well-intentioned Practice" Document

Related, "Well-intentioned Practice for Putting Digitized Collections of Unpublished Materials Online" Endorsed as a Standard by the Society of American Archivists

And the invaluable Cornell Copyright Information Center - copyright.cornell.edu/resources/ (not enough points to link)

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