Re: "Double" Licenses

["Lev Malov" <malov@cacr.ioc.ac.ru>]

I recognise the situation in 'Terms and Conditions for use of Turpion
Electronic Journals' (http://www.turpion.org).

Turpion allows the Subscriber, and Users authorised by the Subscriber (see
Terms & Conditions at the above site), a FREE online access, via the
specified IP ranges, to the Turpion electronic journal for which the
Subscriber maintains a subscription to the print version.

A person in charge (usually a librarian) registers the Subscriber for
online access only ones, and accepts or negotiates Terms & Conditions with
Turpion (a publisher of the English translations of leading Russian
academic journals in physics, mathematics and chemistry). This is a process
of license's negotiation.

When the authorised users officially affiliated with the Subscriber access
the journals they must accept the Terms & Conditions ("click" to agree) to
confirm that they have been advised about the terms. I think it is a simple
way to inform end-users first of all what is permitted and what is
forbidden to do with electronic versions. It is an information function of
end-users' online service. 

Lev Malov
Manager, Turpion-Moscow Ltd.

----------
> From: Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: "Double" Licenses
> Date: 20 January 1999 16:16
> 
> 
> Already this year I've seen two electronic information "deals" that
> require two levels of license.  That is, the institution (library)
> negotiates and signs a license with the provider AND then once the reader
> goes to the site to retrieve the information, he or she is asked to
> "click" to agree to a set of terms and conditions.  I.e., two license
> agreements are in play: one with the institution and one with each
> individual reader. Perhaps this has been happening to us all along, and
> I've only noticed this because of reading two such licenses within a few
> days.  The "click" is NOT the same as "dear reader, here you are and
> here are our working rules" -- rather, it is an attempt to create a
> legal agreement between the provider and the individual.
> 
> In each case, the terms are reasonable enough, but I question that the
> readers fully understand the kinds of liabilities that they are accepting
> by clicking.  And, as we have heard/discussed ad nauseum, "click"
licenses
> are also problematic in that there is no possibility for the reader to
> query or negotiate with a form on the web.
> 
> In any case, it seems to me that the information provider's deal needs to
> be either with the INSTITUTION, who negotiates and accepts all the
> overarching responsibility for compliance with the license, OR with the
> READER, leaving the institution out of the relationship.  There is an
> incompatibility between asking for both.
> 
> Comments please from you publishers, librarians, and lawyers out there?
> 
> Ann Okerson
> Associate University Librarian
> Yale University
> Ann.Okerson@yale.edu
>