RE: License problem with American Geophysical Union

["P V Picerno" <pvp@libr.stedwards.edu>]

Rick, If you have access to legal counsel (either at your institution or
through other means), I would pose the question to them for an informed
answer. I'm not sure that an institution can be held responsible for the
activities of its associates or members (things like Arthur Andersen aside
since that dealt with egregious wrongdoing in the face of an
investigation), especially an institution which is run by the state
because, by implication, you would be making the state of NV legally
liable for the actions of one of its citizens, at least in my humble
opinion. If my memory serves, a precedent would be the Napster or MP3
lawsuits which were filed against the universities where students were
copying music files ... I don't think that those suits were successful.
But, as always, I defer to more informed opinion!

Peter Picerno

Dr. Peter V. Picerno
Scarborough-Phillips Library
St. Edward's University
3001 South Congress Ave
Austin  TX  78704-6489
512.464.8825
fax 512.448.8737

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 6:11 AM
Subject: License problem with American Geophysical Union

Here's another question for the collective wisdom.

I'm negotiating a license agreement with the American Geophysical Union,
and I'm finding them surprisingly unwilling to bend on a term that, if
left unchanged, would make our library institutionally responsible for the
behavior of all authorized users.  Actually, the AGU has bent somewhat --
first by rephrasing the clause but leaving it functionally identical, then
by substantively changing it without leaving the library clearly free of
institutional responsibility for patron misuse.  The changes are getting
us closer to an acceptable license, but I'm surprised by AGU's unique
unwillingness simply to take that language out.  My contact there tells me
that some (though not all) of AGU's library customers have simply signed
off on the original language.  I find that hard to believe, unless these
customers are signing their licenses without reading them, which is
(unfortunately) a possibility.

Has anyeone out there either made a conscious decision to accede to the
terms as written, or succeeded in getting AGU to change them
substantively?

Rick Anderson
rickand@unr.edu