>From Kate:

> Robin wrote:

>> Copying pages or chunks here and there is something that
>> happens every day in every university library and Kinko's.
>
> and Fran replied
>
>> Ah: So since every crime and violation of law happens every
>> day somewhere, it's OK for you to commit any of them?

Kate adds:

> I don't know what Kinko's is, but in a university library
> copying of a section of a book (1 chapter or 5%) for private
> study is perfectly legal.

Yes, exactly. In my post, I was attempting to draw a contrast between this sort 
of legal fair-use copying of small bits -- routine and unremarkable -- vs. the 
question of copying whole books, as discussed in the preceding paragraph of my 
post. It appears I didn't draw the distinction clearly enough to be understood 
by all, and I appreciate you and Andrew making my point clearer.

The example I gave here was my (perfectly legal) practice of copying a page or 
two here and there (along with the title page and publishing info of the book) 
so I have an accurate record of material I am citing or quoting in a scholarly 
article. I learned to do this when I realized how hard it was to read my own 
handwriting in notes that were many years old, or found that I needed to check 
something like a city of publication to put in a footnote. I sometimes do this 
even with books I own so I have all the quotations for a given article in the 
same file. Plus I can happily run a highlighter over text on a Xerox!

Kinko's, by the way, is an American chain of copy centers. That is, they were 
plain-old copy centers when they started sprouting up on college campuses a 
couple of decades ago. Now they also offer Fedex shipping, office supplies, and 
a bewildering array of printing/fax/computer services. They're open 24 hours 
and I have spent many a late night there. I once assembled an anniversary-gift 
scrapbook there at 3am using their nice selection of acid-free decorative 
papers and their good paper cutter. I figure the only thing they're missing now 
is a coffee bar.

--Robin

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