Prof Bruce Royan wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> -What is "lending" in a digital environment? Does the concept mean
> anything
> online? Note that, if you are making a copy, you are not lending.
> Personally, I doubt that you can "lend" anything online - but I'm
> willing to
> be persuaded otherwise.
> ---------------
> Actually, as I'm sure you are well aware, Chris, it's been some
> decades
> since "interlibrary lending", for journal articles at least, has been
> synonymous with "document delivery", whether as paper photocopies or
> in
> microform. The medium is changing, that's all
> :-)
The use of the term interlibrary lending to mean interlibrary document
supply by the library and academic community has been at best
disingenuous and at worst dishonest. One (document supply) infringes
copyright, unless the specific terms of the library privileges or
equivalent derogations in other jurisdictions apply; the other does not.
The much-vilified British Library has been an honorable exception to
this abuse of the language since the Lending Division renamed itself
BLDSC.
-
In answer to Chris' original question, some of the early theoretical
work on ECMS looked at a transferable use-right token, so that if I have
purchased access to an e-publication, I could transfer the token to my
friend which would give him access but mean that I no longer had access,
at least until he returned the token to me. This reflects the key
characteristic of lending (as opposed to copying), which is that the
lender cannot use the lent copy while it is lent.
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Edward Barrow's Unofficial Internet Copyright Pages
http://www.plato32.demon.co.uk/Edward
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"We must take care to guard against two extremes equally prejudicial;
the
one, that men (and women) of ability, who have employed their time for
the
service of their community, may not be deprived of their just merits,
and
the reward of their ingenuity and labour; the other, that the world may
not
be deprived of improvements, nor the progress of the arts be retarded"
- per Mansfield LJ in Sayre v. Moore, 1785.
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