Developing Digital Libraries and the Fate of Copyright from the perspective of Comparative and International Law

Developing information technology has opened new legal aspects in protecting intellectual property rights in cyber space among which is infringement of copyright law by making unlimited number of copies of Literary and Artistic Works, available for thousands of users. Digital library as result of developed information technology, come up with copyright law in two parts: "digital acquisition" and "giving services and providing access" to digital content for library users. Digital acquisition is usually done in two ways: one is digitalization of printed materials by scan or other technical ways and the other is that sources are originally selected, gathered and bought in digital format. About "giving access and services" digital libraries are similar to traditional libraries. The only different is that limitations of papers and accessibility are eliminated and digital sources are more flexible, easily copied and accessible for several users at the same time. Explaining technical context of developing digital libraries, in this research issues and challenges that copyright law brings to the libraries are illustrated and finally the resolutions that legislators of USA, France, United Kingdome and Iran have for obstacles in developing digital libraries are investigated. Consequences show that digitalization of libraries doesn’t open new pages of copyright law but the current law faces new issues in copyright. These issues can be resolved by adding digital concepts to statutory law. In fact there is no difference between the nature of law in digital and real environment but the supervision and performance of rules should be changed.