Photocopy suits

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 12

Photocopy suits

From the “Economist,” London

Be warned: in the United States your photocopier—or at least some uses of it—may be illegal. Seven publishers, who are also acting for their aggrieved authors and who have the support of the Association of American Publishers and the Authors’ League of America,, have lodged a suit against the Gnomon Corporation, which owns photocopying shops in university towns such as Cambridge, New Haven and Ithaca. .

Photocopying. has become a national pursuit and nowhere is it relied upon more than in higher education. The publishers say that their representatives were able to buy from Gnomon 9000 pages of copyrighted material from 300 books from 100 different publishers. The usual charge is about two cents a page. When no royalties are paid, this represents a big loss to

publishers and authors. Business Copiers are said to be more conscientious in paying the charge, which may be no more than. a dollar .or two for a chapter or an article from a learned journal; The suit is the first challenge to photocopying brought under the revised Copyright Act adopted by Congress in 1976; it was put into force at the beginning of 1978 to protect authors, artists and musicians from the piracy made possible by new technologies—jukeboxes, cable television and photocopiers — unknown when Congress, in 1909, last tackled the thorny question of copyright. It took Congress more than 10 years to work out a compromise between the authors and publishers concerned to reward scholarly and artistic work, and the libraries, universities and commercial enterprises

that wanted to see knowledge, art and music disseminated freely—and free.. On photocopying the act provided that an individual might copy a limited amount of material for his own use, but it forbade “systematic” copying. Where, however, to draw the line? It is common for a university lecturer (though a bit less common than it was before the new act) to tell his students to buy a copy of one or two chapters of a book, or of an article in a journal. The lecturers say that it would make their jobs harder, and their students 1 lives more onerous, if 30 or more people had to wait to use the library copy. This is truer than ever now that lib-> raries of all kinds have less money to spend on books and magazines. It would be particularly hard on students at non-residential colleges.,