Those outside the USA following this discussion should be aware that most
legal jurisdictions (and international treaties) do not have anything
resembling what has being presented a "fair use" on Museum-L over the past
few days.

Generally, the main permitted areas are very limited quotation from
book texts and play and film scripts sufficient to illustrate eg. book
reviews or new coverage etc. and the taking (subject to strict limits) of
single copies of a limited part of a work for private study and research
by an individual.

Multiple copying is never regarded as "fair" - nor is copying on behalf of
a others (with the exception of librarians who have a written copyright
declaration/authorisation from a student or researcher etc.

Certainly in the UK schools and colleges in particular have been regularly
targeted by publishers and other anti-copyright theft agencies, and some
individual schools have been forced to pay penalties running into thousands
of pounds with the confiscation of all illegal copies.

There is of course a massive scale international campaign against
unauthorised copying - whether for commercial gain or not - of software,
film & video, music and recordings and visual images - including works of
art.  There are whole departments of some leading European law firms
monitoring unauthorised use of the work of leading living and dead artists
(who have died within the past 50 years (70 years in some countries) and
whose work is therefore still in copyright).  Quite a number of museums
have run into trouble over works that they own physically, but for which
the copyright is still owned by the artist or his estate.  In practice the
artist/estate are willing to licence the owning museum to reproduce the
work for a non-profit and scholarly purpose - eg. reproduction in a
permanent collection or exhibition catalogue - but require payment of a
reproduction fee or a royalty for more commercial reproduction even by the
owning museum - eg. art reproductions, postcards, calendars etc.

Patrick Boylan