Dear Everyone

I was very grateful to you all for the help I had regarding NHS (especially newspaper) copyright regulations.

As many of us suspected, there is no single Licence for the NHS for newspaper copying.

However, having contacted the NLA, I was advised that our own organisation (the National Blood Service) in fact do have a separate Licence themselves, and NLA told me the specifications of the Licence we hold - as well as a contact person within NBS!  (PA to our Head of Communications).

I was told that a large list of other NHS organisations have taken out Licences individually, so if you want to check this for your organisation, you may be best to contact the head of communications first, and then if no information can be gathered, contact the NLA direct to ask if you do have a Licence, and who is the contact person.

I have a handout sort of made, and am attaching it here.  However, the handout does not really cover electronic materials, so I got the book:

Cornish, GP.  Copyright: Interpreting the law for libraries, archives and information services.  London: Facet, 2004.  4th ed.

out from my local library.  This has quite a section on e-copyright, and I think it safe to say that we can only lend CDs, DVDs etc which allow this in their licence statements, because they are supposed to only be used on the premises/by the people who purchase the materials.  Lending a CD that comes with a book, we have always taken to be alright, because it forms part of the overall work, and we can lend books.  However, libraries might want to put some kind of sticker on the work to remind people that copying e-materials is illegal.

The question of maps is interesting.  Ordnance Survey have to be contacted direct for permission to do any copying.  Other e-services, like MultiMap are really nice to us.  They say that you can copy the LINK to their website onto your organisation's Intranet, for instance.  However, the maps themselves must NOT be downloaded onto anyone else's hard disk.  

This is in line with the general interpretation of the law regarding e-format information, that says you can look at the images on a web page (actually the ISP server and your own computer take temporary copies of the information, but this is accepted because it is part of the technical necessity of being able to look at the information), but you cannot download things especially to hard disk, and even more especially if you then intend to distribute/proliferate the information around the Internet/your Intranet.  This is one of the issues we may run up against really hard, with the electronic environment making it so easy for people to proliferate copies with the click of a mouse, so we need to impress on people that it is not allowed.

Thanks to all who replied.  I do appreciate the help and support!

Best wishes
Diane

Diane Pritchatt
Senior Information Professional
Scientific and Technical Training
National Blood Service
Research Park, Vincent Drive
Edgbaston
BIRMINGHAM B15 2SG 

Tel: 0121 254 0517
Fax: 0121 254 0517



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