Royalty costs for E-Reserve items?

[Carolyn_Gonzalez at medcom1.smtplink.amedd.army.mil]

     John:
     
     I've been getting a few requests along the same line, so I'll share my 
     info with the list once I start sending them off to the CCC.  
     
     It was my understanding (when I first started doing copyright research 
     for this project) that there are libraries out there posting the 
     digitized matter of journal articles through the electronic course 
     reserve section of their catalogs, basing their actions on a broad 
     interpretation of Fair Use.  However, there's no guarantee that the 
     courts would share that same interpretation were a case brought to 
     court.  
     
     My library's clientel wants a completely digitized library--not just 
     an electronic course reserve section.  I don't want to take any 
     chances with lawsuits, so I'm going to go ahead and try to get 
     clearance for everything posted (that is, everything that is clearly 
     outside the public domain)--be it in the course reserve section, or in 
     the main catalog's digital archive.
     
     I'm taking an especially conservative approach to this after reading 
     some reports about Bruce Lehman, the guy the White House picked out to 
     head the National Information Infrastructure group on intellectual 
     property.  It sounds like he comes down pretty hard on the side of the 
     copyright holders. 
     
     Carolyn
     
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Royalty costs for E-Reserve items?
Author:  jpearce at u.washington.edu at Internet-Mail
Date:    4/15/97 1:21 PM


> From: Carolyn_Gonzalez at medcom1.smtplink.amedd.army.mil
>      I'm in the process of organizing a completely digital library for the 
>      US Army's Center for Healthcare Education & Studies.  [snip]
>      
>      As far as copyright goes, the library has a membership with the 
>      Copyright Clearance Center.  This costs us $105 a year, plus $1.80 per 
>      request for clearance, in addition to any royalty fee the copyright 
>      holder wants to add.  I haven't requested copyright clearance for the 
>      stacks of journal articles these instructors are waiting to send me, 
>      (We're just now getting ready to order the SIRSI product.) but once I 
>      do, I'll be able to let you know what kind of royalties people want to 
>      tack on for electronic access to their materials.  When I request 
>      copyright clearance, I'll be specifying that I'll be making electronic 
>      copies.
     
I would be *very* interested in finding out what the cost difference 
is for electronic vs.. print royalties.  The U. of Washington Health 
Sciences Library is working on a pilot project putting a few articles 
on Reserve.  Personally, I would like to see us do much more, but the 
copyright questions need to be resolved first.  If the electronic 
royalty costs are substantially lower than multi-copy print, we might 
consider avoiding the Fair Use issue entirely by just getting the 
rights. 
     
I was glad to see Brian Neilsen's view that Fair Use includes serving 
documents to a specific class electronically.  This is where I hope 
copyright law winds up.  Have there been any court cases testing it 
yet?
     
John Pearce
     
P.S.  If you're interested in E-Reserves specifically, check out the 
list in the cc: line.