Re: warranty of non-infringement and indemnification against claims

[Karl Bridges <Karl.Bridges@uvm.edu>]

This is exactly the point. You aren't buying the content. You are 
buying the right to use the content.  It's exactly the same 
difference between buying a car and leasing it. In the latter 
case you have a license/lease to ensure that you are not going to 
damage what is actually THEIR property -- damage which you 
concede is much easier in an electronic environment. There is a 
world of difference between the damage caused by a rogue library 
illegally photocopying a single article and a library that causes 
your entire content to be copied 10,000 times over the Internet 
and destroys the entire market for your product.

Karl Bridges
University of Vermont

Quoting bill@multi-science.co.uk:

> The whole 'need' for licences is questionable, especially in the
> context of a sale of a single title to a single institution.
> Selling a print journal to the University of XYZ has never
> required a licence; why should selling the same content in a
> different form make one necessary? The fact that the electronic
> form makes bizarre behaviour easier - for example one university
> in one country can easily ping content to all others in that
> country; or the publisher can restrict access in the event of
> non-renewal - is neither here nor there. Illegal replication and
> distribution by universities has happened in the past, and there
> already are ways of dealing with it. The idea that publishers can
> restrict e-access in the event of non-renewal is wonderfully
> bizarre. The analogy, in the print sesrials world, is that, in
> the event of non-renewal, the publishers storm into the library
> and sieze all the back issues of the Journal of ABC. If the
> library has bought the content, not rented or hired it, the
> publisher obviously has no further claims over it. It doesn't
> need a licence to establish that. If the publisher thinks he has
> further claims on sold property, let's see him have his day in
> court. It would not at all surprise me if the perceived need for
> licences amounts to nothing much more than a means for grinding
> more money out of libraries.
>
> Bill Hughes Multi-Science
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 10:40 PM
> Subject: Re: warranty of non-infringement and indemnification against claims
>
>> Can someone explain why warranties are needed for e-editions and
>> not for print?
>>
>> Toby Green
>> OECD Publishing