Re: digest 388

[Pam Matthews <pmatthew@gettysburg.edu>]

Thanks, Mike.  Yes, I'm to the point where I can see patterns.  BUT, the
license that brought all this into question was a really horrible ISI
license that had non-standard and VERY legalistic language.  (Plus what I
COULD understand was all very, very no-no; e.g., lots of indemnification
for them, none for us.)  So, I'm going to try to get the lawyers to handle
these kinds of licenses and not worry too much about the "normal" ones.
>From the responses I'm getting, that's pretty standard.

Pam Matthews
Acquisitions/Serials Librarian
Musselman Library
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA  17325
717-337-7007 (phone) ** 717-337-6666 (fax)
pmatthew@gettysburg.edu

______________________________________
At 04:59 PM 3/10/00 EST, you wrote:
>At Berkeley there isn't any way I could get a lawyer to review all our
>licenses; we have about 100 of them we've signed in the last 3 years.  
>But what I've found, having reviewed all of them, is that there is a
>pretty standard set of issues to look out for (e.g., indemnification,
>state of jurisdiction, use limitations, etc.).  The University has
>specific policies on many of these issues, with required language.  In the
>early days I sought advice from University legal and purchasing staff, as
>well as those negotiating on behalf of the California Digital Library (UC
>systemwide). I too took the ARL seminar and have on occasion used language
>from Yale's standard license software.  After all this, I feel like I've
>got a pretty good grounding in the legal basics, I've held my ground when
>I felt University policy offered no room for compromise, and only had one
>publisher (another university) walk away from a deal.  Some of these
>licenses can be daunting at first, but after awhile you start to see the
>patterns.
>
>Mike Rancer
>Library Chief Administrative Officer
>University of California, Berkeley
>
>At 12:01 AM 03/10/2000 -0500, Electronic Content Licensing Discussion wrote:
>
>>From: Pam Matthews <pmatthew@gettysburg.edu> (by way of Pam Matthews
><pmatthew@gettysburg.edu>)
>>To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>>Subject: licensing and lawyers
>>Date: Thu,  9 Mar 2000 18:06:28 EST
>>
>>Hi, everyone.
>>
>>I attended the ARL licensing seminar last May.  The presenters (all of
>>whom are VERY good) put the fear of God into me about signing off on
>>licenses that leave the college vulnerable to breach-of-contract lawsuits
>>and/or don't give the college its full rights under Fair Use guidelines.
>>
>>The presenters impressed upon us that the best way to make sure that a
>>license is watertight is to have a lawyer and a librarian BOTH review it.
>>Therefore, I've been working to get a system in place to do just that.
>>
>>However, our Finance and Administration officers are now noticing that
>>lawyers' time doesn't come cheap and are thinking about not having any
>>agreements reviewed by counsel.  They don't seem to think they'll get sued
>>-- after all, no one has yet, right?
>>
>>So, I have a two fold question:
>>
>>1) How does your institution handle the negotiation and review of license
>>agreements?
>>
>>2) Do you know of any lawsuits or other problems arising from breaches?
>>
>>Thanks VERY much for your help on this!
>>
>>Pam