Posting a PDF of a single short story on library Web site for short story discussion group
- July 10, 2020 @ 9:37ambeangelo says:
Would it be a violation of copyright to post on the library web site a PDF of a story to be discussed by a library short story discussion group? The PDF would be posted long enough for participants to read it and prepare for discussion. It would be removed after the meeting and replaced with a PDF of the story for the next meeting. During the COVID-19 closure, access to the physical collection is limited. I'm wondering if it would be fair use to provide access to the story in this way.
Thanks!
Blanche
- July 14, 2020 @ 8:25amCarrie says:
I wonder why the story needs to be publicly available on the library web site. Can you provide the story via a password protected site or perhaps via email to those in the librray short story group? It's true that if the library is closed due to a global pandemic a fair use determination may be more lenient. If the library was open, how did the members of the short story group get the short story. Did they chek out a book in the library? Did they come to the library and make a photocopy of the story? Were photocopies distributed to the participants? In all of these cases, the copies were still restricted to the short story group. Also the copies became personal copies not meant for re-distribution. While I don't think your plan is absolutely horrible and should never be done - I am wondering why you cannot limit access to the content especially if you know the members of the short story group. Posting a small portion of the story online if you want to attract new members to the group is also a possibility.
Hope this helps.
Carrie
Hope this helps
Carrie
- July 14, 2020 @ 10:44ambeangelo says:
Carrie, thanks for your reply! It is a new club, so we never had any meetings before the closure. We plan to announce the date/time of the Zoom meeting and the story to be discussed, We figured it would help to provide a copy of the story since access to the physical library collection is limited.
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