John B. White wrote:

This raises a host of interesting copyright questions. Archiving a website for research purposes is probably not a violation. Redistributing reprints of it, without the original author's/poster's permission, is. Mirroring it locally, without permission, is. In this day and age, even "deep linking" can be considered copyright infringement.

I disagree (here and there) and I really worry about an increasing failure by researchers and academics to exercise the rights granted by the Fair Use provisions of the 1976 copyright revision. (I beg the indulgence, or simply the delete buttons, of our non-US colleagues who might well grow impatient with the following US-oriented discussion of copyright . . .or on second thought I beg their input -- what kinds of copyright exemptions are available on your turf?) Back to provincialism. US CODE Title 17, Section 107 reads, in part: the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. This suggests to me that there are many instances in which redistributing (note:but -- in general -- NOT selling) web printouts, or, for that matter, any other copyrighted works, would be fair uses. I would argue strenuously that while securing permission for (for example) redistribution of reprints of a web page circulated within a classroom is courteous, it is by no means required by current law, and that sane courts would shoo away a litigant pursuing damages for this sort of supposed "infringement." Further, others have argued that seeking permission for such uses perpetuates a culture in which the copyright cops have the upper hand and academic and critical discourse is ultimately stifled. I won't detail the four point test which accompanies (and potentially limits) the above-cited passage. It's available at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html for those who wish to review it. I'll simply say that a non-profit use, especially an academic use, which does not harm the potential market for a given work is almost certainly a fair use. This section's language, drafted with the input of academics, librarians and the major "creator's rights" group strikes a reasonable balance, and preserves safe spaces for critics, journalists, teachers, and researchers to do their work. But Fair Use will fade from both cyber and terrestrial spaces if honest and fair-minded people who depend on reasonable access to others' works fail to push back against the depredations of the copyright industries, who, emboldened by the crippling of Napster, are currently waging a disinformation campaign. Most of the questionable uses of copyrighted material on the Web have been blocked or stopped by injunctions, and there aren't yet many full-fledged court decisions speaking to Internet-based copyright "violations," so I would caution against flatly stating that a given would constitute a violation, especially because Congress has expressly avoided "bright line" distinctions such as the apocryphal "10% rule," which is often mistaken for law (y'know, the claim that you are free to use up to %10 of a given work). The four-point fair use test must be applied to every single "violation," and a use isn't a full-fledged violation until a court says it is. That having been said, there ARE uses that will, no doubt, flunk the four-point test and (if the copyright holders aren't asleep at the switch) prompt swift and substantial legal action. Scanning and posting the latest Stephen King novel to your University's webspace because you're asking your students to study it remains a very, very bad idea (from a legal standpoint, this isn't literary criticism). The uses contemplated above are far more reasonable, and might well pass the test with the right particulars. My hope is that when uses are fair and reasonable that they NOT be stifled by capitulation to the worst excesses of the copyright industries. To make a long diatribe short . . . know your rights, and use 'em or lose 'em. Best, John Logie Department of Rhetoric University of Minnesota --