This is a library blog to give the latest news and serve as a communication spot for Colleagues, Lecturers and students. Also shown in picture is Matthew, technical ninja.

Copying of whole work into electronic form

When are schools and TAFEs permitted to digitise an entire work?

The short answer is that a school COULD digitise an entire work (i.e., made an
electronic copy from a hard copy work) when a copy of the work - in either
hard copy or electronic form - is not commercially available.
However, if the work that a school wanted to digitise is commercially available in any form - even in hard copy format - then the school would not be permitted to digitise the entire work.

Why is this the case?

1. The fact that the school/TAFE wants to digitise the work means that we are talking about making a copy FROM a hard copy work. That means that Division 2 of Part VB applies to making the copy.

2. Division 2 of Part VB allows schools/TAFEs to make copies in either electronic form or hard copy form where the original document being copied is in hard copy form. As such, there is no rule that says schools/TAFEs can't digitise material under the statutory licence.

3. The question then becomes when the school/TAFE is allowed to digitise the ENTIRE work. The rule here is that you have to apply the commercial availability test in Division 2 of Part VB - section 135ZL(2).

4. s.135ZL(2) means that if the work is commercially available IN ANY FORMAT, you can't copy more than a reasonable portion (either in hard copy or electronic form). In other words, if the work the school/TAFE wants to copy is commercially available in print, they can't digitise the whole thing.

5. This does mean, however, that if the work the school/TAFE wants to copy is NOT commercially available (either electronically or in print/hard copy form), it IS possible to digitise the entire work. Two examples of where this might be the case are:

- when a school wants to digitise a set of slides, and you can't buy a copy of the set of slides
- when a TAFE wants to scan an entire text book because the text book is out of print and is not available in any other format.

It is stated that the copying of an entire work is allowed when:

"The whole of the work is not available in either hard copy or
electronic form within a reasonable time (usually 30 days but
6 months for texts) at an ordinary commercial price."

So a check would need to be made with the publisher if the work is available in any format, or due to be republished in any format within the next 30 days or if intended to be republished in the future, as if it is republished then you will need to purchase.


Information provided by:
Caroline Brasnett
Principal Consultant Intellectual Property & Copyright
WestOne Services