The copyright law allows libraries to make up to three copies of a work for preservation purposes.
Copies can be made for works that are damaged, deteriorating, lost, or stolen, or if the existing format in which the work is stored has become obsolete, [17 USCA 108(c)] so long as the library has determined that a replacement cannot be obtained at a fair price. A format is considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or is not readily available in the commercial marketplace. Such works can be in any format.
Copies can be digital, provided they are not distributed or made available to the public digitally outside of the physical library.
Placement of digital material on an internal intranet is allowed, but loading copies on the library's website where remote users could access it is not permissible. Libraries availing themselves of this exemption must: 1. be open to the public or allow them access from research purposes, 2. not derive any commercial gain, 3. own a legal copy of the original item, and 4. place a notice of copyright on the item.
Section 108 does not allow library staff to make personal copies, but such copies may come under the Fair Use provisions of section 107. There are no prohibitions if material is in the public domain or no one owns the copyright.
House Report 94-1476 notes that the preservation of motion pictures produced before 1942 by making duplicate copies for preservation certainly falls within the scope of Fair Use .
Reproduction of copyrighted videotapes may occur only to replace a work that is lost, stolen or damaged and that cannot otherwise be replaced at a fair price.
One is allowed, under 17 USCA 117, to make a copy of a computer program provided that copy is for archival purposes only or that the copy is necessary in order to run it on current equipment and is used in no other way.
Licenses take precedence over Fair Use and digital locks. Section 108 cannot be used to supersede any contractual obligation.
When preserving web pages/sites, libraries may prepare mirror versions of their websites for backup or preservation purposes, which can be backed up on a server or saved to an external CD.