[LINK] Copyright questions

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Stilgherrian
> Sent: Thursday, 24 March 2011 5:02 PM
> To: Link list
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Copyright questions
> 
> 
> >From a legal perspective...
> 
> On 24/03/2011, at 4:38 PM, Karl Auer wrote:
> >> If I find a document on the web and put a copy of it 
> (unchanged) on 
> >> my website and make reference to it, am I doing anything wrong - 
> >> legally or otherwise?
> > 
> > I suspect (but do not know) that even if the doc is referenced 
> > properly, full credit given where due and so on and so 
> forth, it would 
> > still be seen by the current legal system as an act that 
> the copyright 
> > owner could object to.
> > 
> > The owner may have good reasons for not wanting the work 
> duplicated on 
> > another website. For example, it may be something that the 
> copyright 
> > owner feels is only valid in the particular context he/she 
> placed it 
> > in, and by removing it from that context, you have in some way 
> > diminished its validity. Or (more prosaically) he/she may wish to 
> > count hits, downloads etc; by making it available on your site, you 
> > deprive the copyright owner of that information.
> > 
> > The obvious question is also, of course, why not just link to it?
> 
> All this is correct. Copyright -- that is, the right to copy 
> -- belongs to the creator until, loosely speaking, 70 years 
> after their death. They, and they alone, can give permission 
> -- a license -- for it to be copied / distributed.
> 
> The only exceptions in Australiamn are listed in the 
> Copyright Act under "fair dealing". Loosely speaking, they 
> include limited rights to use extracts for the purposes of 
> academic discussion and review, adapting for parody and the 
> reporting of news. There may be a few others, I'm too lazy to 
> look right now.
> 
> 
> >> If that document is now no longer available on the web and I put a 
> >> copy
> >> of it (unchanged) on my website and make reference to it, 
> am I doing 
> >> anything wrong - legally or otherwise?
> 
> Makes no difference. It's not your decision as to whether it 
> may be reproduced or not.
> 
> There's great material about this stuff at 
> http://www.copyright.com.au/ ... though it's > written from the 
> point of view if people protecting the copyrights of, mainly, authors.
> 

A table in English detailing when items are out of copyright is at :

http://kovtr.com/wordpress/?page_id=360 Bottom of Page.
Content drawn from Copyright Council of Australia, AG's office and
copyright Act 1969 as amended.

Apologies for the self promotion...

The green Column is the bit that you want for most of these things,
however, specifically, can you link or to ca;; it by it's technical
term, "cache content locally".

Caching is permitted to facilitate the rapid delivery of content to the
user [e.g.: Akamai, Google, most ISP's, Portals and Corporate Networks].
Therefore if you make the content available for "slow" web connections,
I believe the copyright owner would have difficulty in prosecuting for
infringement.
Secondly, the rules require a take-down notice prior to civil
proceedings.
No-one to the best of my knowledge has tried the "Format change defence
for easy access... For disabled persons - e.g.: Blind - i.e.: HTML
presentation of a PDF original."

So there is still some room to move.
I usually take a PDF copy and place an inline link to the original, I
then place a second link [to the PDF print of the original clearly
showing the original URL on the PDF print] after the first and call it
"Cached copy here".
In nineteen years I have never received a take-down or cease and desist
notice. 
I personally do not believe in using frames and prefer to open a new
window for offsite content. 

Tomk