Forum Moderators: not2easy
The abstract is about 1-2% of the chosen books, some are the prefaces, and some are 3-4 pages of their chapter one.
Do you think it can meet the "fair use" principle?
Thanks a lot!
Copyright Office Circular 21: Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians [copyright.gov].
And a Stanford U overviews on Academic and Educational Permissions [fairuse.stanford.edu].
You said "students" but if they are not *your* students, or if you post it on a publicly available website, you are greatly reducing your claim to fair use. If they are your students, and it is on a restricted access website, AND you are only doing it for a specific class term and not doing it for class after class, you would be well within normal acceptable use.
The abstract is about 1-2% of the chosen books, some are the prefaces, and some are 3-4 pages of their chapter one.
If you were using book content in writing your own abstracts/summaries of the books, you might be able to claim fair use, depending on the circumstances. But using pages-length chunks just as they are, straight from the books? No. Even when using a low percentage of the content, it still has to be in the context of your own review or commentary for it to have a chance of falling under fair use. (And if the preface is written by someone other than the author, it would be an entire work.)
Besides being illegal, the preface or a few continguous pages of the first chapter would be a terrible "abstract" of any book I can think of, so I'd hope you wouldn't be asking any students to rely on them for classwork (although, of course, that would be their own fault).
I work in a university, and my first thought, too, was "Why not ask the general counsel's office?" - But you don't say these are your students, so I'm guessing this isn't something being sanctioned by a school. (And I can't think of a legitimate use by any school of "dozens" of bad online book abstracts. I apologize if I'm misjudging your purpose.)
You could do this legally for books that are in the public domain, which would include a good number of classics. You'd need to be careful with works that aren't originally in English, though; even if the original work is in the public domain, a specific translation might not be. (Public domain would make it legal, but it wouldn't improve the "abstracts" any.)
ETA: Rereading BigDave's post, if you are in the circumsances he describes (your students, restricted access website, only available for one class term), you might have a better chance. But publishers are getting ouchier about even that kind of use (if they find out about it), and they can give you a bad time even if you'd win the case in court. The most common cut-off point for text use that I've seen given by publishers is 250 words.
(Of course, there's always that forgotten act of asking permission - but that would take a lot of time for dozens of books.)
[edited by: Beagle at 7:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2007]
The Copyright Committee provided fairly specific guideline for educational and research purpose, but it didn't mention "internet use" as the guideline was conducted in 1970s. (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf ----p.13)
Wondering if I've built an "online library" for excerpts of books, do you know it can be regarded as "library" (which enjoy more freedom under fair use principle)?
Another tricky is that although the website itself is non-profit, but the school who funded this website is a for-profit private school registered under the education ordinance and there's a link to the school website. In that case, shall the website be regarded as a commercial or non-commercial?
I thought of restricting access to the website too, but it doesn't solve copyright issue if fair use can only be applied for "a specific class term and not doing it for class after class". If the website were owned by me, I'd just go and use "fair use" principle on my "conscience" until a copyright holder files a complaint. However, for a school website, there's too many social responsibility we have to take care of.
Currently our server is hosted in US because of some legal concerns, that's the area that our school lawyer doesn't familiar with. More advices from members here is highly appreciated.
Currently our server is hosted in US because of some legal concerns, that's the area that our school lawyer doesn't familiar with. More advices from members here is highly appreciated.
In fact, I've discussed this with my principal and the lawyer, and they believe that if I host the website in HOME country, it should meet "fair use" principle. However, local hosting is not my preference because I don't want to put too much effort, as required by local law, on political censorship and its bureaucratic registration procedures. Public domain resources seem to be better choices to go.
zozzen said: Wondering if I've built an "online library" for excerpts of books, do you know it can be regarded as "library" (which enjoy more freedom under fair use principle)?
Calling oneself a "library" does not allow for unlimited copying or excerpting. Libraries have to pay for their copies of books. The main library can't Xerox a book, send copies to all the branches, and call it "fair use".
Eliz.
In general, fair use is tricky and hazy... But, simple if you follow one main rule: You cannot use anything in a manner that causes the copyright holder to lose income.
My favorite (and most controversial) example is using a website in a classroom while blocking the ads!
