From: Hermit (virus@hermit.net)
Date: Tue Sep 23 2003 - 19:50:10 MDT
[Mermaid] if CoV were registered as a non-profit organisation, would it be easier(and legal) to purchase, use and share subscriptions(not just britannica and oed...but even other kinds of subscriptions)...[hr][Hermit] Not usually. I have a number of non-profit organizations, and the primary benefits are cheeaper registration, tax breaks and the ability to attract funding from others, especially the ability to qualify for funding from other non-profits (who can't fund for profits).
A few suppliers have deals for non-profits. However, my experience is that those that do typically offer better distributor/dealer prices. In the case of Brittanica and the OED, their prices are higher to any organization - including non-profit organizations - for group access than to individuals, as the cost is based "per seat". However, where a single "researcher" can quote appropriate material from a number of sources - including these subscription sites, to a closed group, such that the cited material is a small part of the response returned (and of course is a tiny part of the source work), this places it squarely in the category of "fair use", and seems to me to offer a "bypass" for the need for licenses for multiple users.
The way I see it working is:
[Userx] "Topic" -> "Researcher"
[Researcher] Performs lookup on OED/Brittanica/Google/Yahoo/etc
[Researcher] Post responses, including appropriate credits, to closed group.
[Researcher] Notify all group members of new post
[Userx] Reads or quotes posts made by Researcher.
I see the Researcher as a bot. If the TOS for the site precludes using an autoresponding bot, then the appropriately licenced human researcher would have to click "yes" to make the post, i.e. would act like a moderator, and as such the post would not have been made "automatically".
Notice that this mechanism would allow citation on IRC/email etc. by users, who could then quite legally cut & paste from the closed group, although quoting a full article would be dubious practice and open to challenge.
[hr]
[Mermaid] members who contribute(maybe a fixed sum/year) can have access(in a member only section) to these subscribed materials...
[Hermit] This is exactly how I see this facility working... only by interposing a "researcher" we would dramaticaly reduce the costs while remaining completely legal under US copyright law.
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