Staying Legal: A Guide to Issues and Practice for Users and Publishers of Electronic Resources

Citation

Fourie, I. (2000), "Staying Legal: A Guide to Issues and Practice for Users and Publishers of Electronic Resources", The Electronic Library, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 448-469. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2000.18.6.448.11

Most information units are involved with electronic resources. They offer access to workstations, CD‐ROMs, online databases and the Internet. Their management should therefore have a responsibility to ensure that all activities remain legal. In Staying Legal…, the editor, Chris Armstrong, set out to compile a handbook to alert readers to the relevant legal issues concerning almost all aspects of electronic resources, as well as the laws that surround them. Armstrong (1999, p. xiv) explains his intentions as follows: “In assembling this collection of papers it is my intention to provide a first port of call for those information scientists and librarians whose work brings them into regular contact with the various electronic media.”

A variety of aspects are covered, such as access to information and the difference between passive and active information; the role of the government and its agencies in the provision of electronic information; the needs of various user communities for legal information and the extent to which these needs are met. These issues are dealt with in Chapters 1 to 3, which serve as background chapters, setting the scene for the rest of the discussions. The background chapters are followed by chapters on copyright and intellectual property rights; legal deposits; the (UK) Data Protection Acts of 1984 and 1998; criminal liability; self‐regulation; agreements, user licences and codes of practice; information security management and database production.

By now we are all aware of the fact that copyright also applies to electronic resources, and that pornographic and obscene material may cause problems. There are, however, many legal issues that we never consider, for example, accessing Webpages, letting others use your workstation, and the differences in international laws. Although the law is constantly changing, one should at least know what to look out for, for example, criminal liability and self‐regulation especially concerning multimedia and the Internet; agreements, user licences and codes of practice. It is also important to monitor changes in the law. Although pointing out such issues, Staying Legal… is not intended to replace legal advice. It should be used as a source for consultation before, for example, getting involved in publishing on the Internet, sending e‐mails, and so on.

The contributors to Staying Legal… include academics as well as practitioners. They come from a wide variety of fields including library and information science, computer science, law, publishing and banking, which lead to a wide variety of perspectives.

All contributions contain useful information and meet with the stated intentions of the editor. Some are of a more technical nature, and some are more difficult to follow, especially if you are not actively involved in the particular field or affected by UK laws. I enjoyed Charles Oppenheim’s contribution on copyright and intellectual property rights the most. He provides an extremely clear, step by step, explanation of core concepts and issues involved. It should be considered essential reading for any student in the field of electronic copyright!He also provides an interesting explanation of substantial copying. He asks: “What is substantial in terms of quality or quantity?” One way of deciding this might be to ask: “What if the material copied from the book might be missing? How much would that reduce the value?” (p. 62). Another interesting chapter was Andrew Charlesworth’s contribution on criminal liability. He addresses issues such as computer misuse, obscene materials and pornography, protection of children, racial hatred, blasphemy and gambling. Tony Hadland’s chapter on information security management also includes a number of useful appendices, namely: a sample policy statement and code of practice, security architecture policy checklist, encryption, firewalls, sources of additional information and Internet guidelines.

Staying Legal… is a well‐bound, hardcover book with a thorough index. Only a few typographical errors were spotted (e.g. pp. 23, 187, 204). Although some of the contributions are strongly UK based, it is still a book that can be highly recommended for the purpose which the editor intended: librarians and information scientists taking timely note of legal implications, before finding themselves in trouble. It is recommended as essential reading for all managers of LIS, as well as practising information specialists involved with electronic information. Although not a textbook, it should certainly also be brought to the attention of LIS students.