BigDave - 6:33 pm on May 28, 2005 (gmt 0)

I could mistaken, but I believe that the act of copying is a breach of copyright irrespective of whether any use is made of the material or not.

Yes, you are wrong.

The grant of copyright does not allow you absolute control over any and all copying. It only allows you limited control over certain copying.

And the final use is a very important determining factor in whether or not it is an infringing use.

Please go read copyright.gov, 17 USC, or whatever the copyright laws are in your country.

I could swear I am pounding my head on a wall here, but I truely wish that everyone would go read the "A. History and Development of the Copyright Clause" section of the Suntrust v. Houghton-Miffin decision by the 11th Circuit Court. It is wonderfully and clearly written.

You can find that decision at [law.howard.edu...]

Remember, instead of being webmasters commenting about what their biased "common sense" tells them, this is judges that have been educated in the relevant laws and the purposes behind them.

Here are some key quotes:

To that end, copyright laws have been enacted achieve the three main goals: the promotion of learning, the protection of the public domain, and the granting of an exclusive right to the author.

Notice, the granting of the exclusive right is but one of the three goals. And generally considered by the courts the least important. It is the method that is used to support the first two reasons.

As supported by this statement:

Without the limited monopoly, authors would have little economic incentive to create and publish their work. Therefore, by providing this incentive, the copyright law promotes the public access to new ideas and concepts.

You might note that they go to great trouble to refer to limited monopoly in their writings. The reason is that copyright law only grants the holder limite rights.

And here is the part where they point out that most people don't have much of a grasp of what copyright really is:

This has an important impact on modern interpretation of copyright, as it emphasizes the distinction between ownership of the work, which an author does not possess, and ownership of the copyright, which an author enjoys for a limited time. In a society oriented toward property ownership, it is not surprising to find many that erroneously equate the work with the copyright in the work and conclude that if one owns the copyright, they must also own the work. However, the fallacy of that understanding is exposed by the simple fact that the work continues to exist after the term of copyright associated with the work has expired. "The copyright is not a natural right inherent in authorship. If it were, the impact on market values would be irrelevant; any unauthorized taking would be obnoxious." Pierre Leval, Towards a Fair Use Standard, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 1105, 1124 (1990).

And then they go on to cover the reasons for the fair use doctrine. Basically that without fair use, as created by the courts, and over 100 years late codified by congress, there would be no legal way for the copyright laws as writen to coexist with the first amendment.

Now, in addition to fair use rights, there are additional rights that are granted to libraries, archives and educationsl institutions.

In addition to that, the courts have recognised significant personal use rights, such as the first sale doctrine, the right to make backup copies of your software, etc.