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Fair Use: Response from Academic Press
Message from Ken Metzner, Academic Press
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 97 13:09:21 PST
From: "ken metzner" <ken.metzner@acad.com>
Subject: Fair Use: Response from Academic Press
I wonder if I may go back to some comments by Alfred Kraemer and
others about fair use and about one of the licensing agreements put
forward by Academic Press (AP). Here goes:
1. AP's licensing policies are designed to maximize dissemination of
the good science reported in its journals by taking advantage of the
radically new and different distribution mechanisms offered by the
Internet. At the same time we obviously want to maintain a viable
business.
2. What we have done, therefore, is to sit down and have some serious
discussions about how this can be achieved with groups of librarians
and scientists, the latter being our end-users. We wanted to find out
what our customers really want, what end results are really important
to them. We didn't merely want to find a way to adapt this or that
policy or procedure from the print era, but rather develop the new
policies and procedures that would be appropriate in the electronic
era to achieve a win-win situation for our customers and ourselves.
3. Let's get specific: For the two journals "J of Molecular Biol" and
"Genomics" only, AP is charging the same price whether a library
subscribes to the print or to e-access or both. Frankly, this is an
experiment. We do not know whether we will extend it into 1998 and
beyond. But please note that WE ARE NOT TAKING AWAY ANYTHING: Whatever
policies apply to print subscriptions of these journals remain, incl.
legitimate ILL practices.
What we have done is to add an enormous benefit at zero additional
cost: Namely, we have enabled libraries to provide their users, who are
our end-users too, with 24-hour desktop access to these journals and
the right to print and download for their own use, etc., etc.
4. With the pricing in effect now for these two journals, there is no
reason we can see for a library that has a print subscription not to
get an e-license, or vice versa. (By the way, you do this best through
your regular subscription agent. All the agents have been informed
about what to do.) The print subscription can be used for ILL.
[Please note, however, that Section 108(g)(2) of the copyright law
prohibits libraries from engaging in "the systematic reproduction or
distribution of single or multiple copies..." and allows participation
in interlibrary arrangements that "do not have, as their purpose or
effect, that the [recipient library receives copies] in such aggregate
quantities as to substitute for purchase of such work."]
5. It is true that AP's e-license does not include the right to use
the electronic files for ILL or for any systematic transmission
outside the defined set of Authorized Users (faculty, staff,
students). But the library does not need the e-files for that, since
it can use its print copies for legal ILL lending and copying.
6. We have very good reasons for not permitting transmissions or
copying from the e-files outside the licensed group. Doing so would
give us a short-term win-lose situation (publisher loses), leading
rapidly to a lose-lose situation. Here are some of the reasons:
- It is too easy to copy and retransmit e-files with a few clicks of
the mouse. There would not be any of the cost restraints and
inconveniences that limit ILL to some degree in the print world and
act as an encouragement to keep ILL in the print world within legal
bounds.
- Once an electronic copy is transmitted, it can just as easily be
made available by the first recipient to multiple, perhaps even
hundreds of other users.
- Since we believe that permitting activity analogous to ILL by
electronic means will lead to more widespread copying, permitting such
copying takes away the incentive for separate licenses to be sold to
the institutions that receive materials by ILL.
- ILL fulfills a single need: To get a copy of a specific article. As
publishers we feel that a journal to which you can have access in full
at any time is an infinitely more valuable service. A journal is not
just a set of unrelated articles.
- Since ILL in the print world is expressly limited to photocopying,
we do not think it applies AT ALL in the electronic world.
7. With our comprehensive APPEAL licensing scheme for consortia, we
think we have developed a way for libraries to have their cake and
eat it too. [APPEAL = AP Print & Electronic Access License.]
Instead of trying to shoehorn ILL procedures and CONTU guidelines
into the new electronic context, which wasn't even thought of when
they were developed, AP instead encourages additional institutions
to join existing consortia, so that they can share licensed access
to a large collection of journals. With its low add-on fee for
institutions with few or no subscriptions to our journals, APPEAL
can be affordable to all. As more and more institutions are
licensed, as part of large or small consortia, the need for ILL
falls away completely.
8. The APPEAL scheme provides a mechanism for a publisher to satisfy
marginal demand at marginal cost. In the print world, with one price
for all and each journal sold separately, there was no way to charge
less for a small college with minimal use of the journal. (Actually
most publishers do have at least two prices, one for libraries, one
for individuals.) In APPEAL we determine a price for each institution
based on its use of the whole collection of journals. The institution
gets journal A as part of the package, even if its use of A is
marginal. (A detailed summary of APPEAL and a list of current
licensees will shortly be posted at
www.apnet.com/www/ap/aboutid.htm.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A. W. Kenneth Metzner (Ken), Director of Electronic Publishing Academic
Press, 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego CA 92101-4495
tel 619-699-6830, fax 619-699-6715, email kmetzner@acad.com
URLs: http://www.apnet com, http://www.idealibrary.com
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