A View from Scholars and Scholarly Societies Douglas C. Bennett Originally published in Copyright, Public Policy, and the Scholarly Community . Association of Research Libraries, 1995. The author has granted permission to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational or library purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the author, source, and copyright notice are included on each copy. The 53 learned societies which belong to the American Council of Learned Societies embrace more than 300,000 scholars, and all of these learned societies publish at least one scholarly journal.
Scholarly societies feel powerfully the needs, clairns, and rights of authors and publishers.
And we feel powerfully the needs, claims, and rights of scholars, teachers, and students. The schizophrenia is made even more intense by the understanding that, at different times, these opposed perspectives can be found in the same people and in the same organizations. We believe in the possibility of finding constructive ways to harmonize these perspectives, these needs and claims, in a manner that is reasonably constructive and beneficial for all. The debate over fair use in networked environments is dominated by two large worries, one on the part of librarians and one on the part of publishers. They are never articulated quite this boldly, but they suffuse the conversation, coloring much of what actually is said.