Legal issues for providers of electronic information services

Abstract

The organisers of the annual Electronic Public Information Provision seminar at Loughborough University regularly ask participants about the topics they would wish to be included in the programme. Among the topics they most frequently ask for are copyright and other legal issues. This article is a version of a presentation given at the 1995 seminar, held on 19 September. It is intended to provide a kind of checklist of the relevant issues, with some indication of how providers, and those such as librarians who feed information into their services, can avoid embarrassing and possibly costly mistakes. One thing it is certainly not about, is how to win spectacular lawsuits; it is intended to suggest how difficult situations can be avoided by anticipating them. The viewpoint is that of an [informed] layperson, not a lawyer. When decisions on really contentious matters need to be made it is important to consider taking professional advice.

Citation

Sturges, P. (1996), "Legal issues for providers of electronic information services", VINE, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 56-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040598