In what has to qualify as the most absurd power-trip this Quillblogger has seen in a long, loooooong time, an overzealous Indigo employee apparently prevented Julie Wilson, administrator of the popular blog Seen Reading, from copying out a 50-word excerpt from one of the store’s books for her site.

For those unfamiliar with Seen Reading, Wilson, a publicist with House of Anansi Press by day, notices people reading in public, makes a note of the book and the approximate page number, goes to the store to copy a short excerpt from the text, and then posts the info, along with imagined pieces about the reader’s own life, on her site. For her troubles, she’s been profiled everywhere from rival literary site Bookninja.com to CBC Radio.

None of this counted for anything today, though. Wilson’s Facebook status, posted around noon, read “Julie Wilson just got schooled at Indigo for doing SR research. It’s a copyright vs cultural crisis. Simply can’t do it w/out them. What’s a girl to do?” When someone questioned her about it, she provided this explanation:

I’ve been questioned before, and the reaction to my explanation ranges from shrugging and walking away, or “Cool!!!” I’m always left alone. I’m discreet, and always go to a quiet corner. Today, I was told it’s illegal. Not untrue, but it’s a roadblock, for sure. (You can use passages for review purposes from purchased books only.) Clearly, not an option for me to buy hundreds of books a year.

Seems Wilson was caught up short by the Indigo staffer’s allegation that what she was doing was “illegal.” When she explained that excerpting 50 words from a novel-length text for the purpose of review or commentary falls under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act, she was informed that it was only fair use if copied from a book that she owned. It’s illegal to do so from a book on Indigo’s shelf. (Which, by extension, would mean that it would also be illegal for Wilson to copy a passage from a library book, but let’s not split hairs.)

Wilson points out that she spotlights hundreds of books on her site each year, and that it’s not within a publicist’s budget to actually buy that many books. The independents have never given her a hard time, but don’t always have copies of the more mainstream material that often appears in the hands of the reading public.

The big blue monster of Canadian bookselling has been known to throw its weight around before, but this is just ridiculous. Wilson’s project helps sell books. Surely that’s something that even the folks at Indigo can support.

UPDATE: This post contains material that has been corrected. A number of commenters have pointed out that the provision in Canada refers to “fair dealing,” not “fair use,” as was originally written. Quillblog regrets the error.