Quote From walminskipeasucker:
I've decided to become an investigative journalist, just like that Dancing on Ice Star supremo - Donald McIntyre. I've contacted Wulters Kluwer, Science Direct, Emerald, Jstor, Gale and Infotrac and asked them one simple question:
"Is it okay to download a journal article from your site (at a uni that subscribes) and send it to an interested 3rd party for non-commercial gain?"
Guess what they all said - yes, that's fine. Provided it is a read only copy - no problems at all. A couple of them even laughed at my question, as if I was being stupidly anal about it.
So, I've procrastinated in a productive way and found out that there is nothing deviant or unlawful about sharing a read only pdf copy of an article with a thrid party colleague.
Case closed. :-)
Case closed, indeed. But before really closing the case, I have to point out that you were very selective regarding publishers to whom you decided to call or email. There are a lot of publishers who do not allow unauthorised third party users to use their paid material (Cambridge Journals and Oxford Journals being among them). Or this is at least what is stated in their licence documents..
But it is really a good thing that so many publishers allow sharing articles.. so I really want to thank you for investigating this :-)
Case closed.