Re: warranty of non-infringement and indemnification against claims

["Pippa Smart" <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>]

You are not alone in finding the negotiating and administration 
of licences a nuisance, and to address this NISO have been 
working on a framework agreement to replace the need for 
bilateratal licences between publishers and libraries. They have 
undertaken a trial period with publishers and librarians, and 
from this have now issued "SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource 
Understanding" as part of their Recommended Practice series.

SERU is a framework of shared understanding and good faith which 
publishers and librarians sign up to. The (hoped-for) result is 
that there is no subsequent need to negotiate bespoke licences as 
both parties agree to the terms of the SERU agreement.

To read more about the project and to sign up, see the NISO website -
http://www.niso.org/committees/SERU/

Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
PSP Consulting - www.pspconsulting.org
Skype: pippasmart
pippa.smart@gmail.com


> Quoting bill@multi-science.co.uk:
>
>> The whole 'need' for licences is questionable, especially in the
>> context of a sale of a single title to a single institution.
>> Selling a print journal to the University of XYZ has never
>> required a licence; why should selling the same content in a
>> different form make one necessary? The fact that the electronic
>> form makes bizarre behaviour easier - for example one university
>> in one country can easily ping content to all others in that
>> country; or the publisher can restrict access in the event of
>> non-renewal - is neither here nor there. Illegal replication and
>> distribution by universities has happened in the past, and there
>> already are ways of dealing with it. The idea that publishers can
>> restrict e-access in the event of non-renewal is wonderfully
>> bizarre. The analogy, in the print sesrials world, is that, in
>> the event of non-renewal, the publishers storm into the library
>> and sieze all the back issues of the Journal of ABC. If the
>> library has bought the content, not rented or hired it, the
>> publisher obviously has no further claims over it. It doesn't
>> need a licence to establish that. If the publisher thinks he has
>> further claims on sold property, let's see him have his day in
>> court. It would not at all surprise me if the perceived need for
>> licences amounts to nothing much more than a means for grinding
>> more money out of libraries.
>>
>> Bill Hughes Multi-Science
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: <Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>
>> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 10:40 PM
>> Subject: Re: warranty of non-infringement and indemnification against claims
>>
>>> Can someone explain why warranties are needed for e-editions and
>>> not for print?
>>>
>>> Toby Green
>>> OECD Publishing