Copy That … The Rat’s Nest of Copyright

“It is cheering to see that the rats are still around - the ship is not sinking” -- Eric Hoffer (American Writer, 1902-1983)

Copyright is a rat’s nest of unresolved issues. And the issues that are resolved have resulted in counterintuitive resolution. For example, let’s say you found, for a colleague, an article like the following …

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Gasoline alkylation desulfurization over Amberlyst 35 resin: Influence of methanol and apparent reaction kinetics
Fuel, Volume 90, Issue 2, February 2011, Pages 713-718
Benshuai Guo, Rong Wang, Yonghong Liyhli@tju.edu.cn
a Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
b National Engineering Research Center for Distillation Technology, Tianjin 300072, China
Abstract
Gasoline desulfurization is receiving attention worldwide due to the increasing stringent regulations on sulfur content for environmental protection purpose. As conventional hydrotreating technology leads to significant octane number loss and processing costs, the gasoline alkylation desulfurization process, which consists of weighing down the sulfuric compounds by catalytic alkylation with olefins present in the feed and distillation followed by, is a rather attractive way. In this paper, firstly alkylation of thiophenic compounds was researched over macroporous sulfonic resin Amberlyst 35 in methanol presence to increase the selectivity of catalyst, then kinetics of thiophenic sulfurs alkylation in FCC gasoline was researched without and with methanol. Results found that appropriate methanol (2 wt.% methanol in model gasoline and 1 wt.% methanol in FCC gasoline) could inhibit olefins oligomerization significantly without influence on the conversions of thiophenic compounds. The alkylation of thiophenic sulfurs could be described as pseudo first order reaction regardless of the existence of methanol. The introduction of methanol decreases the reaction rate constant and increases the activation energy of alkylation reactions.
Keywords: Alkylation; Desulfurization; Amberlyst 35; Thiophenic sulfurs; Kinetics///////
You purchase and download the article. Can you pass it on to your colleague, even if you yourself never intended to read it?

Maybe not. See what copyright expert Lesley Ellen Harris (http://www.copyrightlaws.com/) has to say on the matter.

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Excerpt from SLA 2010 Conference: Ask the Copyright Expert
Information Outlook, v. 14 No. 6, September 2010
"Q. I bought an electronic version of an article directly from a publisher ... is it considered individual use if I obtained the article on behalf of a fellow employee who is the end user?
"A. ... bottom line: read all agreements carefully."
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Or, how about this … you find, via Google or Yahoo!, the following article …

CATALYTIC CRACKING DEVELOPMENT AND ITS ROLE IN MODERN RUSSIAN REFINERY
Kovin A.S., Sitdikova A.V., Rakhimov M.N. Ufa State Petroleum Technological University
Problems of Russian refineries in face of new requirements for motor fuels considered in the article. It is made review of modern state and development plans of catalytic cracking in Russia. It is considered actual foreign and domestic technologies.
Keywords: сatalytic cracking process, FCC, ultimate gasoline, cracking catalyst, octane number
Oil and Gas Business, 2009 (http://www.ogbus.ru/eng/)
Can you include a hyperlink to the article in an inhouse newsletter distributed to colleagues within your organization? Hmmm … maybe not. Again, Ms. Harris’ take on the matter …

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Excerpt from SLA 2010 Conference: Ask the Copyright Expert
Information Outlook, v. 14 No. 6, September 2010
"Q. Is it acceptable to link to an internal page of a Web site?
"A. Cases settled out of court imply that linking to the home page of a site is permitted, but linking to an internal page of a site may require permission. This is a copyright risk management issue, and each organization should have its own policy governing linking to an internal page of a Web site."
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I believe that at some point in the distant future, the copyright concept will be replaced by some other mechanism which will standardize the way in which content consumers can access and share that content with others.

Until then, we have to rely on experts to guide us through the rats’ nest while avoiding the rats.

Ask your librarian or other information professional for help. These people grapple with copyright issues every day, and are attuned to the quirks and foibles of the system.

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Jean Steinhardt is an independent information professional … follow the Desulfurization Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/) for tips and tricks on how to maximize your online search effectiveness.