The IPKat: Swiss Supreme Court: document delivery service for scientific articles

"This decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court is not the most recent, but may be interesting in connection with the discussion on private copying exception in the UK. Switzerland knows a fairly substantial private copying exception. Art. 19 Copyright Act namely excepts the following uses from the exclusive rights of the copyright owner: (1) Published works may be used for private use. Private use means:a. any personal use of a work or use within a circle of persons closely connected to each other, such as relatives or friends; b. [...] c.  the copying of a work in enterprises, public administrations, institutions, commissions and similar bodies for internal information or documentation. (2) Persons entitled to make copies of a work for private use may also have them made by third parties subject to paragraph 3; [...]. (3) The following are not permitted outside the private sphere defined in paragraph 1 letter a: a. the complete or substantial copying of a work obtainable commercially; [...] Based on art. 19(a) and (c), the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) offers a document delivery service for scientific articles. For small fee (approx. EUR 12 for private individuals and EUR 18 for commercial entities), it scans an individual article from any volume in its collection and sends the PDF per email to the requester (sorry, not available outside of Switzerland and Austria). In 2011, about 40,000 copies were made and sent to requesters. Unsurprisingly, the large scientific publishers Elsevier, Springer and Thieme did not like this, and they brought suit against ETH before the Commercial Court of Zurich.  The Commercial Court found that the copying as such was permissible, but not the sending by email. On appeal, the Federal Supreme Court came to a different conclusion ..."