Lawyers, Librarians and the Law

"We are in a difficult position: we want users to access information, but we want them to do it correctly. Spending all our time telling them that a contract says they can only do X, when they want to do X, Y and Z is often just a waste of time, as they will continue to do exactly what they want, and we have no power to stop them doing it." Quoting from a post by a member of Scottish Law Librarians Group that was published on On Firmer Ground.

Examples highlighted:

• Sharing subscriber-only content with other staff who are not authorised for access to that content
• Distributing subscriber-only content to clients
• Sharing passwords for subscriber-only databases
• Using and distributing material from commercial sources without attribution

For much more, see When the lawyers ignore the law. Recommended. However, I do believe law librarians have some power to stop license violations. To the extent we can, we have a duty to do so. [JH]