Re: electronic journals CCC

[Adrian Alexander <alexandera@lindahall.org>]

Anthony,

Any librarian (and there were a few of us) who attended the
NFAIS-sponsored seminar on fair use and the Internet last January in
Washington DC would certainly have come away ( I know I did) with the
distinct impression that at least most of the larger commercial publishers
were of this "anti-fair use"  persuasion. AAP itself is on record before
the US Copyright Office in opposition to revisions to our Digital
Millennium Copyright Act relative to the first-sale doctrine, without
which there really isn't any fair use, at least in the electronic
environment. Other recent public comments from AAP leaders seem to suggest
that we in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" from the type
of librarian/publisher cooperation that you describe below.

*********************************************
Adrian W. Alexander, Executive Director
Big 12 Plus Libraries Consortium
http://www.big12plus.org
Treasurer, BioOne, Inc.
http://www.bioone.org
EMAIL: alexandera@lindahall.org
**********************************************


At 06:57 PM 4/28/01 -0400, you wrote:
>I am absolutely fascinated to learn that publishers "as a group" would
>love to see "fair use" go away. How Tom Williams knows this I cannot tell
>unless he is bugging AAP. Across the water publishers and the library end
>of the higher education community (JISC) have come to an agreement on the
>interpretation of what we call "fair dealing" in the electronic
>environment. Many US companies are represented by the PA (UK Publishers
>Association). I am surprised if they take a radically different stance in
>the US. If anyone is interested in this example of cooperation the
>document is available at
>www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/pa/fair/intro.html.
>
>Anthony Watkinson
>14, Park Street,
>Bladon
>Woodstock
>Oxfordshire
>England OX20 1RW
>phone +44 1993 811561 and fax +44 1993  810067
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Tom Williams <twilliam@bbl.usouthal.edu>
>To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
>Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 6:29 PM
>Subject: RE: electronic journals CCC (fwd)
>
> > Mike, lucky for us that Sue Medina has been steadfast in her insistance
> > that copyright law, including "Fair Use" and Contu guidelines be honored
> > in the NAAl contracts she's negotiated with various vendors.
> >
> > Still, it's very important that library administrators, when negotiating
> > individually, insist on this same thing.  Publishers as a group would love
> > to see "Fair Use" and Contu guidelines go away and I've seen more than one
> > contract that tries to do that.  However, in most cases libraries can
> > negotiate back to fairness.  If we refuse to sign when ILL/Doc Del is
> > prohibited the vendors, at least the smart ones, generally come around.
> >
> > Recently we've been back and forth with one major vendor who has actually
> > cut out a portion of Fair Use in the contract.  They refuse to allow us to
> > provide ILLs or articles to organizations which pay any fee.  There is
> > nothing in the copyright law nor the Contu guidelines that exclude cost
> > recovery.  The ironic part to this issue for that company is that their
> > refusal to honor fair use in this case will have little to no impact on
> > us.  Just about all of the titles we use regularly are already on our
> > shelves in print format so we'll still be able to provide ILLs to all of
> > our users - including those that get charged a cost recovery fee.  Print
> > journals are covered under fair use and Contu.  Online versions do not
> > always as we are required to sign separate contracts and the vendors do
> > their best to cut out certain of our rights in some cases.
> >
> > However, we are negotiating a separate deal for this and hope to get this
> > issue resolved soon.  Some vendors don't seem to be able to distinguish
> > between cost recovery by a library and a commercial enterprise of an
> > information broker or information company that actually makes a profit on
> > this activity.
> >
> > Negotiating these licenses is a tricky business and we have, on more than
> > one occasion, been told one thing verbally during negotiations and found
> > the opposite to be true when the written contract/license is finally
> > presented by the vendor.
> >
> > There are land mines all over the place so we all have to keep our eyes
> > open when working out these online licenses.
> >
> > --
> > Thomas L. Williams, AHIP
> > Director, Biomedical Libraries and
> >  Media Production Services
> > University of South Alabama
> > College of Medicine
> > Mobile, Al 36688-0002
> > tel. (334)460-6885
> > fax. (334)460-7638
> > twilliam@bbl.usouthal.edu