Page:The librarian's copyright companion, by James S. Heller, Paul Hellyer, Benjamin J. Keele, 2012.djvu/120

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The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act added twenty years to the copyright term. Congress tried to appease the library and academic communities with a tiny bone: During the last twenty years of copyright of a published work, a library or archives, or a non-profit educational institution that functions as a library or archives, may copy, distribute, display, or perform a work—in either facsimile or digital form—for preservation, scholarship, or research if (a) the work is not subject to normal commercial exploitation, and (b) a copy cannot be obtained at a reasonable price. The library may not take advantage of the exemption if the copyright owner notifies the Copyright Office that either (a) or (b) apply.

The “normal commercial exploitation” language appears to mean that the copyright owner has decided there is no commercial value in the work. If the copyright owner makes the work available on the Web for a fee—either as part of a database or as a stand-alone product—or if the library can purchase reprints, the work is being commercially exploited and the exemption does not apply. And even if the work is not being commercially exploited, the exemption only applies if the library cannot acquire a copy at a reasonable price.

The Bottom Line: This exemption is not worth the paper it was printed on, nor the bits and bytes it takes up in the digital world. Works that have