Official duties have to be executed with observance to the law, and there is no exception if the subject is library, their activities at official facilities are indispensable to be lawful. For the law is always the accumulation of past experiences, every new case like electronic journal inevitably proposes what application is the proper. This report gives an overview of legislative regulations and recent interpretations related for introducing the electronic publications, especialy electronic journals, into the official organization.
The RPMS(Resale Price Maintenance System), under which publications must be sale across the country at fixed prices. The RPMS has been ruled an exception to the Anti-Monopoly Law. The Fixed Price System has contributed for the distribution of wide variety of titles in small volumes. The authorities concerned had been started to review an exception to the Anti-Monopoly Law, about 10 years ago. There were hard discussions between the authorities and publishers concerned. After that the Fair Trade Commission annunciated that the exception rules are validity. The purpose of this paper is to describe the related arguments and foreign affairs, and to consider the role of the RPMS.
Laws and regulation relating to lending and copy service include ones about administration process of public materials, selling process of public materials, copyright, and so on. This article explains how these laws and regulation specifies lending and copy service in libraries.
Since Japan Academic Association for Copyright Clearance(JAACC)was appointed the CCC's copyright licensing agent, libraries and industries have been faced with problems in copying foreign works. However, it seems that the libraries and information world here have failed to thoroughly discuss the copyright protection of foreign works. In this papers, the writer sums up the present situation, point out problems to be solved and try to show the way to reach the goal.
Library Services for the visually impaired and the mentally and physically handicapped are media-converting services such as Braille transcribing, producing audio and/or large printed books, and home delivery or lending service by mail. The Copyright Law, Mail Law etc.restricts these services. Also there is the building standard law of public facilities. A library is established by Library Law and an institute providing information to the visually disabled is established by Law for the Welfare of the Physically Handicapped. I describe the laws that should be understood when we carry on library services, and study improvement of information surroundings of the disabled.