RE: Teach Act, E-Reserves, & Fair Use?

["John T. Mitchell" <John@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The American Library Association has a nice resource at
http://www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html.  According to an excerpt from
that site:

1. Works explicitly allowed. Previous law permitted displays of any type
of work, but allowed performances of only "nondramatic literary works"
and "nondramatic musical works." Many dramatic works were excluded from
distance education, as were performances of audiovisual materials and
sound recordings. The law was problematic at best. The TEACH Act expands
upon existing law in several important ways. The new law now explicitly
permits: 

. Performances of nondramatic literary works;
. Performances of nondramatic musical works;
. Performances of any other work, including dramatic works and
audiovisual works, but only in "reasonable and limited portions"; and .
Displays of any work "in an amount comparable to that which is typically
displayed in the course of a live classroom session."


(Of course, fair use remains as an independent basis for using
copyrighted works, under the right factual circumstances.)

John
______________________________
John T. Mitchell
John@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://interactionlaw.com
202-415-9213

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Charles [mailto:rcharles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 10:36 AM
Subject: Teach Act, E-Reserves, & Fair Use?

After reading all of the talk on Ereserves and the teach act I get the
impression that people on the listserv are intending the act to cover
placing text from books online.  The act however (in my opinion) is
specifically talking about display/performances which to me means a
painting displayed on an overhead or a short clip of a nondramatic
performance.  I find no support in the text of the statute to support
the copying of chapters from a book to be displayed electronically? Any
comments.

ryan