It seems I write a rant just like this every six months. It comes of working in copy-shops. Anyway, here are some notes for those who want to bring in books and photos to the copy shop.
Yes, that other guy just walked out of here with a spiral-bound photocopy that looked like a book. That was his uncopyrighted set of notes on how to service an airplane, which his professor at the technical/engineering university assigned all of his students to have laminated and bound. The legitimacy of somebody else’s copy job does not effect the illegitimacy of yours.
I’m aware that you paid $3 for that piece of sheet music for your church choir, and I’m quite willing to believe that you have 80 people in said choir, all of whom need sheet music. I guess you’re just going to have to find $237 somewhere so you can provide them all with what they need. I have no sympathy for you.
This photograph was taken in a studio by a professional photographer, and therefore I am not allowed to run a copy of it unless you go to the photographer and get a copyright release form signed by him or her. I don’t care whether you thought the package with three eight by tens, two five by sevens and two sheets of wallets was expensive; it’s still copyrighted. When you try to lie to me about it, I’m still going to see through you. It does not matter that it is you in the picture. That is not how things work. You did not take the picture, so you do not own the copyright, and the studio has the right to protect its work. It’s not like the photographer is rich. You do realize that taking the photo and developing it costs money for the darkroom supplies, and the rent on the studio, and the props he gave you to pose with so it looks really pretty, PLUS he has to feed himself and his family and keep them under a roof, right? Tell you what, go ahead and make as many copies of that photograph as you want, and then I’ll just go to where you work and confiscate all of your reports and important paperwork and claim I did them myself.
I am not making this up. I am not the boss of the copyright laws. The manager of this store is not the boss of the copyright laws. The owner of this chain is not the boss of the copyright laws. You can yell at me all you want and I am not going to give half a shit.
No, if you did it yourself and I wasn’t aware of it, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. However, now I am aware of it, and so I am somewhat obliged to make sure you don’t do it, to the best of my abilities. I will most assuredly NOT go over and show you how to set up the color photocopier to get the best possible quality on your stolen prints.
Yes, I have stolen music over the internet in the past. I’m aware that it makes me a hypocrite, but my hypocrisy does not excuse your behavior right now.
I don’t care if other employees, other branches, or other stores will do this for you - I WILL NOT.
Does that mean if I asked you to omit the table of contents, you could do it? Since it’s not the WHOLE book anymore. (sorry if I sound like one of them irritating customers) It’s what my brother used to do instead of buying textbooks, but he could have been just shitting me.
No; the law says that a small part may be copied for personal or educational use, and that’s usually interpreted (and is codified officially in the rules of the place where I work) as no more than 10% of the entire work.
And I just thought of a rather amusing (in a stupid way) story: Two kids from the local CC came in with somebody else’s math textbook, and asked me to photocopy it. I explained why I couldn’t, including the 10% thing, so they said ok, and asked me to just do the first few chapters “so we won’t have to keep borrowing her book all the time.” I didn’t really want to because I could tell they were planning shenanigans, but there was no legitimate reason for me not to, so I did it for them. Sure enough, they came in the very next day asking me to do the NEXT few chapters. Apparently they figured that if they only got 10% at a time, every day for 10 days, they’d be successfully cheating the system.
I told 'em it was clever, but I wasn’t gonna do it. They handled it pretty well, and probably went to another copy shop in town…
I’m not certain, but I think you may be misunderstanding and stretching the principal of copyright here. A legally owned copy of a copyrighted work may be have multiple copies made so long as it is for teaching purposes and meets guidelines for brevity, spontaneity, and cumulative effect. In other words, the choir cannot own the music, but may be able to learn a single song for the purposes of their choir duties, working of copies that contain the copyright notice, returning them when they are done. Am I certain how the law applies to this particular case? Nope, but it is a close enough call where I wouldn’t want to be caught sporting a baditude about it.
Well, I’ll admit I’m no expert, but when things specifically say not to make copies of them, and I’ve been told my entire life (including by the director of my high school chorus, who made us all share our sheet music because, as he said, it would have been illegal to run off copies on the machine to give us each our own), I’m gonna err on the side of caution and let you complain to my manager, who may or may not agree with me but will at least take the burden off my shoulders.
Note to self: Do not visit racinchikki’s Kinko’s. I’ll stick to the one where the employees happily assisted me with photocopying the code sheet for a computer game.
Replace the word photographer with the word musician or the word band and you are pretty much describing illegal file sharing and downloading over the net.
Kudos to you for erring on the side of legality and caution, whether or not you may be 100% correct in any specific situation. Copyright law, espeically Fair Use Determinations, can be very difficult and there is a reason lawyers spend so much time in court arguing over what is “Fair Use” and what isn’t, and what is “copyright violation” and what isn’t. You’re not obligated to help anyone do something where you honestly feel that it may be a violation of a copyright holder’s rights.
Also, I imagine that regardless of the law or any interpretation of it, you have rules to follow where you work. It sounds to me like you’re doing everything right and proper.
I’ve been around five church choir directors. They all were careful to buy enough copies of sheet music so every singer had their own. One director, in Lansing Michigan, even tracked down the copyright authorization to copy a hymn from an out of print hymnal, of which no more copies were available. She wasn’t taking any chances. It is not legal to buy one and then run off copies. I recall a Catholic church in Chicago, back in the late 80’s when I was spending a year there in school. They made the news because it was found they HAD run off copies. I don’t remember what the legal retribution entailed, but it had to be more than they “saved” by cheating.
I’m a baker. I worked for some time in a large store bakery, and one of my jobs was to decorate cakes. Each time a new Disney movie came out I cringed. It would go like this:
Ring
Good afternoon, this is *****, may I help you? Yes, I’d like to order a birthday cake for my little girl
That’s fine, what would you like on the cake? Well, we just saw The Little Mermaid yesterday, and she wants Ariel on the cake
I’m sorry, maam, but we can’t do that yet. The figures and stencils have not yet arrived from the supplier. But can’t you just draw it?
No, we can’t. We can do mermaids. I suppose we could even do one with red hair. But it CAN’T be recognizably Ariel. Disney holds the copyright. I wouldn’t tell!
No, but someone else might. But she’ll be heartbroken! I promised her Ariel!
I’m very sorry.
And so on and so on.
Ah, see, here’s where I would argue that you might as well make the damn copies. Clearly the owner of the copyright loses nothing by it, because the school (I assume) couldn’t afford to buy more anyway. Yet by abiding by the letter of the law, things are made more difficult on everybody.
That’s a brilliant idea. I’ll suggest to my state legislature that they slash the public school budget. Once the schools can’t afford textbooks for the students anymore, they can just buy one and make copies. We’ll save thousands of dollars, and nobody gets hurt!
What, iamthewalrus(:3=, do you want me to run a complete background check and find out the exact financial status and perceived need of every idiot who nances down the pike demanding copyright infringement of the copy store peons? Believe me, you make an exception for one person and it starts everybody saying "but the other guy said - " and "my friend got this done - " and it just makes everything even harder for everyone involved.
Just because you can’t afford to buy something doesn’t mean you’re entitled to steal it.