Hi Hena Before I offer what I hope will be helpful clarifications, I would like to say that I am not a legal expert, and only seek to offer the best of knowledge that I have. And I am trying to make it as practical as possible Your question about the contradictory bit: If two different users "ask" you for a copy of an article "from something that your organization has paid for" - then you are not "distributing copies". Your organization will be "distributing copies", only if some employee makes several copies and proactively distributes it in order to share some information for any work. Eg - if there is an employee training prog - and if the trainer wishes to make 50 copies of an article to distribute to all participants - strictly speaking that is a violation. The law (if this goes into a legal suit for any reason) may condone it, as it is part of an educational process. Ideally, it is BEST to get permission from the copyright holder before making copies. It is still easier to show one copy in the class, and tell every participant "it is in the library / through our e-journals - go and read it" It will be viewed even more strictly if such copying is done for actual distribution to clients or part of any directly commercial activity. When your organization pays subscription for a journal then everyone in your orgn has a right to read the journal. Different individuals may ask for a copy of an article, for the convenience of reading at his/her own desk. It is a good idea to have request forms that clearly state the reason for copying. When people ask for reading purpose and not distributing, it is fair use. If they wish to distribute, then you should have an SOP to pay copyright fee for that many copies, or to get permissions for training purposes. Do check out this page from the British Library website - it has a lot of "examples" http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/atyourdesk/docsupply/help/copyright/copyrightfaq/in... Regards Vasumathi ----- Original Message ----- From: HENAG Hello Ms Vasumathi, I need a clarification of your point number 3 below. You said librarian from a commercial organization can make copy of an article from a subscribed journal or library book for an employee of the same organization. However not allowed by the same or anyone else to get several copies of the said article or pages to distribute. Is it not little contradictory ? Please clarify ------ If the librarian has the authority for taking copy for an employee today , after a few days someone else from the same organization might require the same article for some other project for reference and requests librarian for a copy , s/he has the authority hence again can take copy and serve , and so on . Now how will we/ you should differentiate the distribution of the copy to the employees of the organization than that of serving his/ her user as a librarian. Is there any line that we can draw between the word DISTRIBUTE and SERVE to the user of library? I am bit confused for the word fair use / single use, and I think specially when we librarians in a profit making organizations are concerned the copyright laws are not very transparently/ clearly expressed . It is somewhat vague or not thought of us while written them . If you have better way or explicitly written authorised document please name it , I would like to go through that . Best Regards Hena S Gupta ( Sr. Librarian) Infosys Technologies Ltd, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore-560100 Board : (91)-(080)-28520261 Ext 52196 Fax: (91)-(080)-28520742 We enable you to leverage knowledge anytime, anywhere! -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.