Question on Copyright Policy

Boston_Guy

I wanted to inquire into the forums policy on sending a copy of a journal article to someone else. I take it that I can, say, post the abstract to an article or post a quote from an article. But what about when I go to the library, xerox a journal article, come home and scan it into a PDF file? Can I then e-mail it to somene who has an interest in the subject matter? Is that forbidden by copyright law?

Borek

Seems to me like you are mixing two things here - first you ask about the forum policy, then you ask about a copyright law. We can't do much about what you do outside of the forum, we can enforce only that you follow forum rules on this site - so as long as your quotes are not too long and you reference the original source, that's OK with us. I am not sure about details when you send the copy to someone else. I got copies of some papers this way from people I know, so I guess they treated it as a "fair use". Perhaps ask in the library?

Boston_Guy

I appologize if I was being unclear. My objective is to learn how to follow the forum rules. In that respect I read the forum rules which are posted here http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=414380

The forum rule that I have in mind is this
I want to understand how it applies to my actions on this discussion board. For example: someone asked a question about the equivalence principle. I long time ago I was in the library and copied an article from the American Journal of Physics on this very topic. I posted the abstract since I thought the information in the abstract was useful. My next step was to ask the OP if he would like me to e-mail him the article. I wanted to dicuss this with the moderators first to make sure that me offering to do that would be a violation of forum policy. For example; since I'm posting a lot more online nowadays since I'm pretty much homebound I want to make dead sure that I'm following the forum rules to the letter. When I'm unsure I thought I'd ask. In retrospect I think that my quetion mayhave been better sent to a moderator using the PM system.

Is it against the rules to ask a person in open forum if they'd like me to e-mail them the article? I as thinking of creating a website to faccilitate my online discussions. One thing I could do is to upload an article to my website and then post a link to the article. Would if violate the forum rules to post a link to the article? Thanks.

jtbell

It is against the forum rules to use the forum's facilities (posting or PM) to offer to send unauthorized copies via e-mail, or to advertise their presence on some other site.