Today, the University Library at La Roche Sur Yon is hosting a Copy Party.
In December of last year, the copyright legislation in France was modified to stipulate that the right to make a private copy applies only to copies derived from a legal source and cannot be invoked in reference to works obtained via unauthorized sharing services.
The organizers of the Copy Party had the delightful idea of creating an event to celebrate and educate the public about their right to make a private copy from a legal source: the library!
In an interview for Framablog, Lionel Maurel, Conservateur des bibliothèques et juriste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, described the event,
La Copy Party, c’est une manifestation qui va avoir lieu le 7 mars prochain, à la Bibliothèque Universitaire de la Roche Sur Yon, et au cours de laquelle les lecteurs seront invités à copier, avec leur propre matériel (scanners, ordinateurs portables, appareils photos, smartphones, etc) des documents issus des collections de l’établissement. Ce sera l’occasion de sensibiliser les participants à la problématique du droit d’auteur à l’heure du numérique et de réfléchir aux enjeux de la circulation et du partage des savoirs. D’un point de vue juridique, la Copy Party s’inscrit complètement dans un cadre légal, car elle s’appuie sur l’exception de copie privée, telle qu’elle a été modifiée à la fin de l’année dernière.
Translation,
The Copy Party is an event that will take place March 7 at the University Library of La Roche Sur Yon and during which readers will be invited to copy, with their own equipment (scanners, laptop computers, cameras, smartphones, etc), documents from the collection of the establishment. It will be an occasion to raise the participants’ awareness of the problem of copyright in the digital age and to think about the stakes involved in the circulation and sharing of knowledge. From a legal standpoint, the Copy Party remains entirely within a legal framework because it rests on the “exception” of the private copy, as modified at the end of last year.
Visit the official page of the Copy Party [in French] or attend, as I will, by following the #copyparty hashtag on Twitter.
The well-prepared mind 