If I construct an amateur corpus by downloading on-line
newspaper articles, is it legal
(a) if I use it only for my own educational use
(b) if I use a set of single-sentence extracts from the corpus to
make a classroom exercise
(c) if I put the corpus on *one* computer in the language lab for
student use
(d) if I put it on multiple computers in the language lab
for student use
(e) if I copy it to disk for any student who brings me a disk
and wants to use it for educational purposes only
In the US, there was a case about a commercial copying
company photocopying (for classroom use) assorted articles
given to the company by a professor. The copying company
sold the packet to students, with a profit on the copying charge
(this profit was *less* than the students would have paid to
photocopy all the article individually in the university library).
The courts ruled that this was NOT a copyright violation, as it
simply made easier and cheaper what would have been
legal for each student to do individually in the library. The wording
was a tad more legal, but that's how I understood it.
(This was reported a couple of years ago in _Academe_, the AAUP
-- American Association of University Professors -- publication.)
It seems to me that the corpus issue might be similar.
Anyway, any information on this would be welcome.
Karen Stanley
kstanley@charlotte.infi.net
karen_stanley@cpcc.cc.nc.us
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA