Copyright For Books

[Drugi]

Hi,

Apologies if this is not your area of speciality, but could you point me in the right direction to finding out some things please?

I would like to scan some books and put them up on the internet for students to download.

How does copyright law and 'fair use' basically work?  Is it different locally, or is it international?

For example, I live in the Cayman Islands. I heard they have very few copyright laws here. If I copy a Oxford University Press book and place it on the web do I need to check local copyright laws, US laws, International?  

I see many sites which offer PDFs for books for download which are not licenced for digital reproduction.  HOw do they get away with this? Is it because they are based in Russia, CHina or some country without local copyright laws regarding books?     

Thank you very much for your help,

Dale.