Royalty costs for E-Reserve items?

[John Pearce]

On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Pat Costigan wrote:
[comments on the high cost of copyrighted articles snipped]
> This becomes even clearer in the second copy from John: "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." Just exactly what
> is the difference between "serving documents to a specific class" than mass 
> copying each document, binding them together, and handing them out to the class 
> -- which is publishing an anthology and is certainly not fair use by any 
> previous interpretation.

A better question is: what's the difference between 1) having students 
walk up to the reserve desk, ask for a reprint or ten, walk five yards
and xerox them and 2) having them call up a web page, download a
reprint or ten, and print them out on their own desktops?

Our Reserve desk currently duplicates requested reprints for
instructors' reserve lists as a free service.  We use our own Document
Services department, and charge ourselves the going rate for it, so
$1.80 plus a small copyright fee isn't outrageous.  If the fee is
large, well, that's why I asked.

> Perhaps the "reluctant professors" mentioned in the beginning of this string, 
> since they are also the authors of much of the material, were quite correct to 
> be hesitant at placing their notes etc. on a server from which they can be SO 
> EASILY copied, manipulated, stolen and plagiarized. 

I have had an instructor ask about this.  Most of them are satified
with the security most web servers offer.  We serve these files only
to U. of Wash. computers by default, meaning almost no one on the web
(including search'bots) can see them.  If there were some especially
sensitive files, we would consider putting passwords on them, and
letting the instructor distribute the password.  Technically, this is
better security than our physical reserve desk can provide, since you
don't need to prove affiliation to check anything out (we're a state
school).  While this was not enough for the one professor, I wouldn't
say the files are easily copied, etc.

> Generally I'm on the side of "free and available", but I think we need to pay a 
> bit more attention to the view from the other side. 

When it comes to materials with commercial value, I agree.  I don't
like the idea of denying authors their due.  But students aren't going
to buy subscriptions to journals, they're going to get the text from
the library.  If we can simply streamline that without impinging on
other uses of the material, common sense will be on our side.  Which
may or may not come in handy in any legal case :). 

John Pearce
U. of Washington
Health Sciences Library