RE: Column on licenses

[<Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>]

Joe,

Thanks for the clarifications. I missed the bit about hardcopy. 
In fact we already offer e-books to anyone who purchases hardcopy 
via our online bookshop (and we allow our distributors to make 
the same offer too). We don't charge any more for this service: 
simply put, the hardcopy purchasers can download the e-book 
whenever they want and as often as they want from their account. 
For some of our titles we also print Internet links in the 
hardcopy to data files and other background information that 
supplements the work. We don't impose any license on the 
purchaser to access these e-resources (beyond the usual copyright 
statements) and I think it would be impracticable to do so unless 
we used the same sort of method as used by software providers, 
i.e. some sort of "I agree" box at the foot of a huge legal 
document that no-one ever reads which you have to click before 
you can open the software. Does it stop users pirating software? 
Or sharing it with their friends? Does it stop large software 
vendors from being dragged through long legal battles? I also 
have another practical problem - we sell our books to clients in 
nearly every jurisdiction around the world - how could I possibly 
(a) draw up a legal agreement that would work everywhere since I 
can't afford a legal team the size of Microsoft's and (b) how 
could I possibly enforce them if I did? Surely the scale of this 
questioning of the limits to copyright is such that it has to be 
handled systemically by legislators rather than litigators?

I agree that our business model is less likely to work for books 
other than research monographs, conference proceedings and the 
like. But I would like to correct the impression that we're 
walking away from our hardcopy business - we're not, because we 
never had a "hardcopy business". This may sound pedantic, but 
it's a point worth making. Our business is the same - providing 
information in an effective manner. So far I haven't come across 
very many clients who express the need for licenses as part of 
our service, and I'd hate for this to change because our 
administrative costs would grow and we'd have to pass this onto 
our customers.

Toby Green
Head of Dissemination and Marketing
OECD Publishing
Public Affairs and Communications Directorate
http://www.oecd.org/Bookshop
http://www.SourceOECD.org  - our award-winning e-library
http://www.oecd.org/OECDdirect  - our new title alerting service

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: 19 October, 2006 7:46 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Column on licenses

Some clarifications and comments.

No publisher I know of, including OECD, Springer, or Elsevier, 
has the kind of license I envisioned.  Our (Shatzkin's and my) 
proposal was not for ebooks, which are likely always to be sold 
with licenses (more below), but as an option for someone who 
purchased hardcopy.  I hasten to add that we are NOT saying that 
hardcopy should be licensed.  We are proposing that anyone who 
purchases a hardcopy automatically gets an OPTION for an 
electronic license, whose terms would be set by the publisher. We 
also propose that those terms be progressive, but not every 
publisher will agree to this.  If such licenses were in place, 
there would be no lawsuits against Google, provided that the 
terms of the licenses covered sufficient territory.

It should be noted that not all, indeed few, publishers have the 
luxury of OECD in walking away from their hardcopy businesses. 
Books for the research community are the exception; the rule can 
be found in Borders and Barnes & Noble.  The riches--in 
hardcopy--of the modern American bookstore, not to mention what 
can be found at Amazon and its online competitors, are by my 
estimate about 8 times greater than what was available 20 years 
ago (from an average of 12,000 titles in a retail store to 
100,000).  There is little demand for making these titles 
available electronically, though I for one believe that that is 
just about to change.

As for the horror of licenses, I suppose we all have to choose 
our monsters. I would prefer a multiplicity of licenses to one 
lawsuit.  In the absence of licenses, we have litigation.  And 
this promises to get uglier.  Google, for instance, has 
subpoenaed Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon as part of its defense 
against the publishers' (and the Authors Guild's) lawsuits. Why? 
Will the publishers turn around and sue the University of 
Wisconsin?  Where does it end?  There may be some members of this 
list who do not know what it means to be dragged through civil 
litigation--the waste, the falsehoods, the routine abuse of the 
people who get swept into it.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: <Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 4:11 PM
Subject: RE: Column on licenses

> Joe,
>
> Thanks for alerting us to your piece in Publishers' Weekly. You say
> that you know of no publisher with a clear policy on how libraries can
> use e-books. I find this a challenging statement because I would be
> surprised if Springer and Elsevier did't have one. However, I do know
> this - we have one. We post some Terms and Conditions for using our
> e-library on our website (you can find the link at the bottom of every
> page.) We issued this in 2004 and so far, we're finding no problems at
> all with it and neither do our growing number of customers.
>
> I agree with Kevin Smith about the horror that would entail if every
> publisher issued a formal license with their books. This is why we do
> our utmost NOT to sign licenses with our customers, relying instead on
> our Terms and Conditions, trust and existing copyright laws to prevent
> widespread abuse (we realise that some level of abuse will occur
> whatever we do!). Some customers, usually, I have to say, in the US,
> insist on having a license. We think this is an administratively
> expensive way to work together. After all, we never signed licenses
> when we sold printed books to librarians - so what's different now?
> Sure, it's easier and cheaper for someone to do illegal copying of
> copyright material from an e-book - but signing a license won't change
> that!
>
> Your conclusion, as ever, is spot-on. Many book publishers do need to
> get beyond worrying about their print business and start experimenting
> with new marketing channels (but don't always expect miracles, all our
> books are on Google's Books service and we're getting great visibility
> but precious few sales so far). We stopped worrying about our print
> business in 1998 and haven't looked back - two-thirds of our books
> revenues this year will come from 'e'. (Traditionalists reading this
> might be comforted to know that every book we publish is also
> available in print as
> well.) If anyone wants to know how we did this, I'll be telling our
> story at an ALPSP seminar on November 6th in London, UK, and at an SSP
> seminar on November 14th in Washington, DC - maybe you'd like to come
> along yourself?
>
> Toby Green
> Head of Dissemination and Marketing
> OECD Publishing
> http://www.oecd.org/Bookshop
> http://www.SourceOECD.org  - our award-winning e-library
> http://www.oecd.org/OECDdirect  - our new title alerting service