Copyright Scenarios

A University library subscribes to a scholarly journal and a professor wants to make photocopies of articles from that journal for archival purposes.

Is this allowable under Fair Use?

Since Fair Use is so slippery, it is difficult to determine if it will actually protect anything in a court of law. Most of the case law for this scenario involves corporate employees rather than university faculty members, so our professor’s intentions might indeed be allowable due to factor number one (non-profit, educational purposes), but to make an accurate assessment, we must more fully know the professor’s intentions. What is the nature of her research and what role will the photocopied articles play in that research? Will the professor profit from the use of those articles? Would it be unreasonable to expect the professor to take out a personal subscription to the journal? Or at least to request the publisher’s permission to make the copies? Even if there is a violation, is there even a remote chance of the professor being caught?

The Skinny Scientists employed by Texaco Inc. photocopied journal articles from a scientific journal for what they deemed "archival" intentions (i.e., they copied the articles in anticipation of needing them for future endeavors, not to aid them with a current issue or problem in their research). The Federal Appeals Court did not find that the use of these copies fell under the Fair Use Doctrine (American Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc., 1994).

These scientists failed to request permission from the publisher to copy these articles. Additionally the scientists were copying complete articles and not just parts. The court found that this hurt the marketability of these journals and harmed the publisher's ability to license their copyrighted materials. These important factors helped to weigh in favor of the plaintiffs.

It is worth noting, however, that Texaco employs 400-500 research scientists, all or most of whom did this sort of photocopying to support their research, and the court did point out that if this photocopying had been done by a single individual, rather than widely, even institutionally, by a major corporation, to support his or her own research, that this practice might well not constitute a violation.

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