RE: Report Suggests U.K. Consider Regulating Licensed Content

["BENNETT, Fiona" <fiona.bennett@oxfordjournals.org>]

I think it is a shame that publishers weren't consulted as part 
of this report process, because as a publisher of journals in the 
arts and music area we have experienced significant problems 
clearing rights and have recruited additional staffing to help us 
with this.

In answer to the DRM issue we don't have any because it is 
largely ineffective and expensive.  Much of the feedback we get 
from galleries etc refers to concerns about loss of control over 
images and the possible endless re-distribution of them once made 
available online as part of an article.  Often we are asked 
whether we have any kind of protection in place but to date we 
haven't.

Fiona Bennett
Head, Rights and New Business Development
OXFORD JOURNALS
---------------------------------------------------------------
Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford OX2 6DP  UK
Email: fiona.bennett@oxfordjournals.org
www.oxfordjournals.org

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony
Watkinson
Sent: 16 October 2006 02:40
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Report Suggests U.K. Consider Regulating Licensed Content

I was present at the launch of this report. The British Academy's 
approach was to ask fellows what problems they had encountered 
using copyrighted content in their own work (I simplify but this 
was the gist of it). They did consult a group concerned with 
intellectual property issues. They did not however consult any 
publishers or any librarians.

It looks as if the sort of problems distinguished academic 
authors have in getting permissions are entirely or almost 
entirely with the music industry and picture libraries - see the 
examples in the text. The links between this sort of evidence and 
the recommendations is not (to my mind) at all clear and the 
chairman of the group preparing this report admitted that there 
is a lot of work to be done before any systematic view is 
reached. In particular I was puzzled about the concerns over 
digital rights management, an enemy which is often invoked. I do 
not know of any publisher of scholarly books or primary scholarly 
journals which implements digital rights management. Does anyone 
on this list know of instances? I imagine such implementation 
would cost quite a bit

Anthony Watkinson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hamaker, Charles" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 9:21 PM
Subject: Report Suggests U.K. Consider Regulating Licensed Content

> Report Suggests U.K. Consider Regulating Licensed Content
> http://www.libraryjournal.com/clear/CA6380712.html?nid=2673#news1
>
> The British Academy, a national body for the advancement of 
> humanities and social sciences, has released an eye-opening 
> report, sponsored by the European Commission, suggesting the 
> application of copyright law in the United Kingdom may be 
> inhibiting the work of scholars and offering ten 
> "recommendations" for redress, including possible government 
> regulation of licensing deals. Among the report's conclusions: 
> copyright exemptions such as "fair dealing" (fair use) should 
> "normally be sufficient for academic and scholarly use," but 
> that "problems lie in narrow interpretation," both by rights 
> holders and by publishers; that copyright holders, as a result 
> of the development of new media, "are more aggressive in 
> seeking to maximize revenue from the rights, even if the legal 
> basis of their claims is weak;" and that there are 
> "well-founded" concerns that new database rights and the 
> development of digital rights management systems (DRM) "may 
> enable rights holders to circumvent the effects of the 
> copyright exemptions designed to facilitate research and 
> scholarship."
>
> The report, Copyright and Research in the Humanities and Social 
> Sciences: A British Academy Review was composed by a working 
> group of eight members, appointed by the British Academy and 
> drawn from a range of subjects in the humanities and social 
> sciences along with help from the Centre for the Study of 
> Intellectual and Technology Property Law at the University of 
> Edinburgh.
>
> ****