Skip to main content

Copyright joy for law firm libraries!

Yay!
As emailed out over lis-law last week, the Copyright Licensing Agency have developed a CLA licence just for law firms. Body of the press release below:

New licence for law firms


15th October 2008

CLA have announced the launch of a new licence designed specifically for UK law firms.

From 1 November 2008, the new Law Licence will offer law firms additional benefits to the existing photocopying rights.

The Law Licence now enables articles and clippings from law reports, journals and press cuttings (magazines, journals, legal and other periodicals, but not newspapers) to be scanned, stored electronically and distributed externally to clients.

The new licence has been developed in consultation with The Law Society of England and Wales and the City of London Law Society so that it meets the needs of law firms that wish to copy from law reports and journals, business titles and other published media.

Chris Holland, Librarian & Head of Information Services at the Law Society said, “CLA photocopying licences are well established within the legal sector. This new licence gives additional rights to make digital copies, reflecting the much increased use of digital technology in law firms, including the use of electronic case files and shared email folders. It also removes the previous limit on the number of photocopies that could be made for a single occasion or purpose, thus providing more flexibility than the previous law firm licence to photocopy.”

The licence will be officially launched at the Law Autumn event at Birmingham NEC on October 15 & 16 where customers will be able to find out more about the benefits from CLA licensing staff.

CLA’s Andy Greenan, who is leading the licence launch, says, “Law firms want to be able to digitise relevant articles and reports to share with individual clients by email or within a case-based file. For the first time this licence allows that and I am sure demand will be high.”

Law firms that already hold a CLA licence will be able to upgrade from 1 November.

For further information about the benefits of the new Law Licence, please contact CLA on 0800 085 6644, email licence@cla.co.uk or see www.cla.co.uk.


Now, I'm assuming that if the Law Society of England and Wales are happy with this, it's equally applicable for Scotland. Hopefully. Being able to legally scan and store certain things can be handy, although we've often already negotiated these sort of agreements with individual publishers. Any reduction in the amount of time spent faffing abouttrying to work out what we're allowed to do, and with what materials, will be very nice!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK librarian blogs - the list so far

I’ve pulled the previous entries into one alphabetical list, with a few categories. Will be back later with more detailed discussion of what I’ve learned by doing this. And, as always, if you know of other librarian blogs, let me know and I’ll add them in! Institutional Library Blogs / Professional Group Blogs aRKive Appears to be the blog of the Reid Kerr College library, or someone related to the Library, but unable to confirm as it doesn’t have any ‘about’ section that I can find. Lots of posts about library topics, books, IT… Brit Lib Blogs Google Group There’s a Google Group for British librarian bloggers! Unfortunately it looks to be pretty much unused at the moment. CILIP Blogs CILIP has various blogs by either staff, or links to relevant blogs, available from the Communities section. Varying levels of activity on these blogs – the PTEG blog has one post from November 2007, while Lyndsay’s CILIP Blog has been going has been going for almost a year, with at le
14 comments
Read more

The mysteries of cataloguing

Cataloguing: an arcane art, where each piece of punctuation is significant, and commas and semi colons are all-powerful. Well, they are in "proper" libraries, where in-depth research of esoteric points goes on, and the precise spelling of Christian names, and information such as when a person lived and died can be crucial in pinpointing obscure facts. Here, we have our own catalogue system. It doesn't have a name, but if it did, it would probably be something along the lines of "I need this book NOW, no I don't care about the precise spelling of the authors middle name, or their date of birth." I know, I know, it's not snappy, but it's accurate. Cataloguing demands are different in a commercial law firm: we don't care about much more than what it's about, who wrote, when, and what jurisdiction it covers. And what we really, really care about is "where the hell is it". Law books are amazing: they have the power to move themselves f
12 comments
Read more

Careering along

When I look around at the activities of information professional groups, it seems that there’s a disparity. There’s quite often a lot of support and funding available for those who’re just starting out in the profession, but a desert of nothingness for those of us who’re “just getting on with it”. If you’re a new professional, you have lots of groups to support you as you progress in your early career, various prize funds available for essay and report writing, access to bursaries for conference attendance, eligibility for awards for being new and enthusiastic. But what do you get when you’re past that bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed first 5 years (5 years seems to be the approximate cut-off point for becoming “established” and no longer new). What happens when you’ve already received a bursary from an organisation earlier in your career and so wouldn’t be eligible for one now, meaning you’re not able to attend events or training? When you’re heavily involved in a project but not at
16 comments
Read more