Copyright : Black and White or just making you see Red?

In order to protect the intellectual creativity of individual authors of all kinds, nearly every country in the world has introduced copyright legislation. This gives the author certain exclusive rights whether they are wanted or not. In some countries the legislation also gives users of copyright material certain limited privileges. Whilst this system works well for material which has a commercial value from a publishing; distribution point of view, it often causes frustration in those areas where the primary objective is to make information more widely available without any intention of profiting directly from such availability. Creators of grey literature therefore find themselves often in possession of rights they do not wish to exercise such as copying, quoting, translating and distributing. These activities, when undertaken by others, often bring benefit to the copyright owner as they advance the original aim of greater dissemination at no cost to the producer. Users, however, often find themselves hampered by very limited opportunities from a legal point of view as the law is designed for all types of material and makes no distinction between commercial and non-commercial activities. Unless owners make disclaimers in their publicly-available documents users are constrained to seek permission for many actions in which the owner has no interest and might well respond "don't bother me!" but the law does not work in this way. Some easily recognised system internationally needs to be devised to make it clear to users, regardless of language or country of origin, what the owner of copyright in grey literature is willing to permit without seeking permission. Some kind of universally accepted code should be devised to speed dissemination, reduce delays and unnecessary administrative burdens on both users and owners.Includes : Conference preprint, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa