Re: New US Bill re. Copyright/Federal Funding

[Peter Hirtle <pbh6@cornell.edu>]

At 04:01 AM 9/23/2008, Sandy Thatcher wrote:

>As a footnote, I would add that university presses are concerned 
>about the government's move to make the papers of the Founding 
>Fathers, as published with editorial apparatus by a number of 
>presses, freely available on the Web without compensation to the 
>presses or editors, whose work has been supported only in part 
>by federal funding and in substantial part by private parties 
>also. This kind of expropriation would severely undermine the 
>ability of presses to continue publishing these valuable papers.

There is reason to be concerned about this initiative, but not 
for the reasons that Sandy outlines.  You can see my blog posting 
called "Free the Founding Fathers!" at 
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2008/06/free-the-foundi.html 
for the details, but the heart of the problem is that NARA seems 
to feel that the best way for people to get access to volumes 
whose editing and often publication costs have already been paid 
for is by having people subscribe to expensive university press 
delivery systems that limit how the work can be used.

There is no question that the editorial work of the projects has 
been top-notch, if sorely underutilized.  Similarly, some 
university presses are providing useful interfaces with 
value-added features that are well worth the subscription costs. 
There is no reason, however, that the government should not also 
take advantage of its license (a condition of providing the 
grant) to make this material available for free.  If editorial 
projects do not like the government's license, they should not 
have accepted the editorial funding - just as publishers who do 
not like the NIH mandate should decline to publish articles 
funded by NIH (rather than trying to interfere with the author's 
rights as the copyright owner to license things as he or she sees 
fit).

Peter B. Hirtle
CUL Intellectual Property Officer
Scholarly Resources and Special Collections
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY  14853-5301
peter.hirtle@cornell.edu
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu