Thanks Tim for that information.
However, what I really would like to see to get some sense of proportion
into the whole copyright/FOI debate is some robust risk assessment about
what actual real world penalties any of us might genuinely face as a result
of technical infringements of copyright relating to the kinds of copies that
we, as archivists, tend normally to supply: copies of administrative or
routine documents that have no real world resale value at all.
I don't mean a list of the penalties as listed in the CDP Act - if taken
literally that act would ban the sale of all PC's with a CD copying
capability, and all DVD recorders that can be hooked up to a video recorder.
I know that we, as archivists, just love to get ourselves tangled up in the
minutiae of every nuance of every nitty-gritty rule and regulation that we
think might just possibly one day somewhere justify our professional
existence. We all also love to think that our collections of attractive
historical documents and old photographs have huge potential reproduction
cash values. In fact the bulk of them don't. Not to a level that makes any
commerical sense, at any rate.
What I would like to know is - what is REALLY likely to happen to any
archive that happens to copy the late Lord Obscure's 1967 laundry bill for
an academic researcher without getting a copyright declaration form signed
first. In the real world, my guess is - nothing.
I don't mean to sound flippant. My serious point is that we are all
increasingly labouring under a growing theoretical mountain of regulations,
standards and codes of practice. In the real world, our budgets stand still
or shrink, and the demands on our services increase exponentially, assisted
by the march of copying and distribution technologies that are leaving
copyright legislation struggling to keep up. It is not for nothing that
"working to rule" is a synonym for "making the job impossible to do" - in
real life there is always a risk assessment to be done to ascertain the
genuine costs of compliance with all such codes. Has anyone done this for
copyright and archivists?
Well, it is Friday...
Regards
Richard
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Richard Taylor BA MArAd RMSA
Collections Access Manager
National Railway Museum
Leeman Road
YORK YO26 4XJ
Tel: +44 (0)1904 686289
Fax: +44 (0)1904 611112
Email: [log in to unmask]
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