Libraries and copyright: a comparative study

Abstract

Copyright is a vexing issue for librarians and archivists. They collect, restore and provide access to hundreds, thousands and sometimes millions of works protected by copyright. For this reason, these custodians of copyright works receive special dispensation in the copyright legislation in many countries. My study examines the copyright issues confronting librarians and archivists in New Zealand and places these in the context of legislation and case law as well as looking at how library and information science has coped with the issues in the past. The New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 is a brave and groundbreaking piece of legislation that gives many new freedoms to librarians with regard to copyright and I analyse all of these. I also explain where the provisions come from and in identifying a variety of themes, compare the New Zealand situation with that in Australia and the United Kingdom, two jurisdictions with which New Zealand shares much. As many concepts vital to copyright are left up to the courts to decide, the major cases feature and I conclude by looking to the future and what the Australian and United Kingdom legislators could learn from their New Zealand counterparts with regard to copyright exceptions for library and information workers.