Photocopying and Copyright
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PHOTOCOPYING AND COPYRIGHT: ISSUES FOR SMALL SPECIAL LIBRARIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES Jacqueline Patrick A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Librarianship in the University of New South Wales, 1994 UNIVERSITY OF N.S.W. 7 SEP m LIBRARIES I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledge is made in the text. (Signed) Abstract This thesis investigated the extent of breach of copyright through photocopying by, and the impact of compliance with the Copyright Act on, special librarians. The survey was restricted to special libraries in New South Wales which were listed in the 8th edition of the Directory of Special Libraries in Australia and its September 1992 update, and which had collections of 10,000 volumes or less. Because of the nature of the libraries surveyed, where photocopying of currently published material is a daily part of life, and because of the very wide scope of Commonwealth copyright legislation, the study was restricted to the copyright residing in literary works. The survey investigated the role of special librarians in policing a law which threatens criminal conviction. It assumed that breach of the copyright laws is a frequent occurrence and aimed at determining the extent to which librarians are in a position to enforce compliance. Librarian's attitudes toward copyright and photocopying were also sought. It was also assumed that, as far as librarian's attitudes are concerned, what is the case in similar studies conducted in the United States is probably the same as the case in Australia and that no significant differences would be found between the findings of these surveys and the outcome of the survey undertaken for the purposes of this thesis. It was assumed that librarians still consider the laws to some extent unreasonable, that they still have difficulty in getting a commitment to compliance from both clients and management, and that they continue to act in a knowledgable, professional and responsible matter in spite of these difficulties. A questionnaire was developed and tested with a pilot study. The final questionnaire was photocopied and distributed to respondents with a letter of explanation attached and with a stamped addressed envelope included. The questionnaire was posted to 291 special libraries. Of these, 203 or 70% were returned, of which 188 or 93% could be used for analysis. iii A summary of the results of the survey is as follows: The average number of staff in the special libraries surveyed is 1.4 full-time staff. 87% of libraries have their own photocopier located in the library. Users do the most photocopying, and because the majority of librarians think that users are not aware of copyright laws, there is a copyright warning notice placed by the copier in accordance with section 39 A of the Copyright Act in 67% of libraries. All respondents were aware of copyright laws in varying degrees, the majority (67%) having read the Copyright Act and 72% of librarians supplementing their knowledge with further reading. 83% of special libraries produce a library bulletin for disseminating information to their users. 33% of these libraries include contents pages of serials in their library bulletin, and 38% include full or partial bibliographic details of items, often from their own catalogue , a monthly frequency being the most preferred. The majority of librarians (78%) would not photocopy a whole book, but contents pages are photocopied by 81% of respondents on a frequency ranging from at least once a week to every few months. 87% of all material photocopied is currently in print. Although request forms are the most frequent method of requesting photocopies, 56% of respondents did not ask users to sign a declaration form in accordance with section 49 of the Act. When declaration forms were kept they were generally in line with statutory requirements in that they were kept in chronological order, but were kept for longer periods than the Act requires. Even though the entitlement to rely on section 49 as a defence is lost unless a notation is made on each copy of the name of the copying library and the date, only 50% of libraries made such a notation. While 70% of respondents thought that copyright laws were reasonable, 28% of comments made by these cited problems with powerlessness and with the difficulties of policing the law. The results of the survey are presented and discussed. The issues for special librarians raised by the findings included problems with powerlessness and with the difficulties of policing the law. Additional problems over record keeping were cited. Other aspects raised were the inadequacies of the Act to keep up with new technologies, the expression of concern at not being able to copy contents pages, and the need for further education. The issues raised by the findings are presented and discussed. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix LIST OF TABLES x Chapter I. INTRODUCTION Creativity or economic reward? 1 How special librarians are affected 2 Aim of the survey and assumptions 3 Postcript 4 II. COPYRIGHT & PHOTOCOPYING History of the legislation in the United Kingdom 5 The Copyright Act in Australia 6 The Australian Copyright Council 7 The Copyright Agency Limited 8 The role of the photocopier in formulating legislation 9 The Franki report 10 III. PHOTOCOPYING IN LIBRARIES Protection for literary works 16 Photocopying in libraries in educational institutions 17 Photocopying in Government Libraries 19 Photocopying in Special Libraries 20 IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS FROM THE LITERATURE 25 V. SURVEY DESIGN Limitations of the study Scope of subject 37 Range of respondents 38 Data gathering instruments Subjects and sampling 39 A pilot study 41 Data gathering procedures Distribution 42 VI. ANALYSIS OF DATA Response rate 44 The Results A composite picture of the respondent library 45 Payment of licence fees to CAL 46 Who does the copying? 48 The location of the photocopier & copyright notice 49 Users' awareness of copyright laws 50 Librarians' knowledge of copyright laws 52 Means of disseminating information 53 Extent of breach of copyright 55 Method of requesting photocopies 57 Record keeping 58 Defences under the Act 60 Charging for photocopies 60 Librarians' views on copyright laws 61 Summary of findings 69 VII. DISCUSSION Introduction 71 Problems with policing or powerlessness 72 The problems associated with record keeping 73 The ability of the Act to keep up with new technologies 74 The problem of contents pages 75 Conflict with publishers' profit motive 78 vii The need to protect authors'/publishers' rights 80 Education 80 VIII. CONCLUSION 83 BIBLIOGRAPHY 87 APPENDIXES Appendix A: Review of the literature 96 Appendix B: Questionnaire development 113 Appendix C: Letter accompanying questionnaire 117 Appendix D: The Questionnaire 118 Appendix E: The results of the survey 124 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Filling in questionnaires is time-consuming and rarely interesting. It was an insight into the responsibility librarians feel toward their profession to see how many completed and returned the questionnaire related to this study. It was enormously motivating to see that many had added words of encouragement. The author wishes to thank those librarians. The contribution of my supervisor, Professor Boyd Rayward, Dean of the Faculty of Professional Studies at the University of New South Wales, is gratefully acknowledged. LIST OF TABLES 1. Sizes of Collections of Special Libraries in the New South Wales Section of the Directory of Special Libraries. 40 2. Staff doing Photocopying 48 3. Frequency of library bulletins designed to disseminate information 54 4. Contents of the library bulletins 55 5. Materials Photocopied and Frequency of Photocopying 56 6. Means by which users request photocopies 58 7. Periods for which Copyright Declaration forms are kept 59 8 Charges made for non-Inter-Library Loan photocopying 61 9 Classification of comments in response to Question 20 63 x I. INTRODUCTION Creativity or economic reward? The modern view of the purpose of copyright law is that it exists in order "... to protect and reward creativity and intellectual effort". 1 The symbol of the Australian Copyright Council is a 'Tree of Creativity' surrounded by the motto: "Respect Copyright, Encourage Creativity". Ploman and Hamilton 2 state that copyright is expected to provide an answer to the question "How can intellectual creativity best be promoted?" Perhaps a more realistic view is offered by the State Library of New South Wales which considers that the function of modern copyright is to provide "... the balance between the artist's right to rewards for his creativity on the one hand and the right of the community to freely circulate ideas, information and images on the other". 3 This philosophy of promoting creativity endorses a legal movement away from an historical emphasis on the protection of property (usually of the upper classes) to a more equitable basis of social justice for the benefit of all. However, the purpose of copyright law is not as altruistic as it appears. Copyright in effect relies on a monopoly in order to protect the interests of the owners. Those affected by copyright are the creator, the distributor (publisher), the consumer (user) and society as a whole. As will be seen in this study, the economic role comes to the fore more often than the creative. 1 Australian Copyright Council. Copyright in Australia. Redfern, New South Wales: Australian Copyright Council, Sydney, 1989. p.2. 2 Ploman, Edward W.