Re: "Double" Licenses

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Steven, see a few comments interspersed below:

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Steven Melamut wrote:

> The publishers contract is with the institution.  If there is a subsequent
> lawsuit resulting from that contract, the publisher will sue the
> institution because that is where the money is.  It is unlikely that
> anyone will want to chase students and faculty.
> 
> Creating a secondary license serves two other possible purposes:
> 
> (1) Educating the end-user as to any restrictions that have been agreed to
> by the institution.  It is necessary for someone to make them aware that
> there are restrictions upon use of the material.

**No doubt that is part of the intention.  But -- this objective can be
achieved by posting a single screen of "what users may do."  This
description can be relatively brief; it can be linked from strategic
places in the vendor's or publisher's web site.  It need NOT presented as
a mandatory click license to each reader.  (The latest one I read was
really very long and I question that our users would carefully read and
understand every line.)

> (2) Giving those restrictions an aura of legality that will deter most
> abusers.  The publisher does not want to go to court, they merely want the
> terms of the contract to be respected. They certainly don't want to have
> to track down every student or faculty member that has used the material.

**Perhaps abusers would be deterred; I am skeptical but could be convinced
that a nice long click contract would achieve this goal.  BUT:  If the
publisher does not want ever to track down each reader, then why ask each
one to agree to a license???!  That question was implicit in my original
posting.

> Perhaps the publishers would agree to forgo these warnings if the
> institution wants to explain the restrictions itself.  It is in the
> institutions best interests that users do not violate the license
> agreements.

**The institution's role is to educate the readers about their rights and
responsibilities.  Indeed, yes.  It has been thus for some time!

Ann Okerson/Collections Development
Yale University Library