Re: Column on licenses

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Toby:

I admire the energy and creativity you have put into your 
program, but none of it is going to stop publishers and authors 
from sueing Google or anybody else who scans in-copyright works.

Here is a scenario.  You are the publisher of Thomas Friedman's 
The World is Flat.  You sell one copy to Ohio State for $25. 
The book is scanned and put on a server, for viewing by any 
member of the Ohio State community.  I haven't checked the 
numbers; how many people is that?  75,000?  100,000?  Why do I 
smell a lawsuit in the works?

Another scenario:  you publish a scholarly monograph with an 
initial printing of 800 copies.  A library purchases it, scans 
it, and makes it available to members of its community?  A 
lawsuit?  Dumb idea, but on the other hand, there is the issue of 
setting a precedent.

Third scenario:  you publish a narrative history (say, a 
biography of Andrew Mellon, which I just saw today in a 
bookstore) for $35.  You print 20,000 copies.  When a library 
purchases it, the library has the option of getting extended 
rights.  For $200 the library's community gets ereserve, ILL, and 
digital coursepack rights.  For $1,000 the library gets LAN 
rights for its entire community.  These licenses are totally 
automated:  go to a Web site, enter your institution's name (or 
Hazel Henderson's or Atypon's DOI), choose the license you want, 
wait for the service to verify with WorldCat that you purchased a 
copy of the hardcopy, and have your institution's PayPal account 
debited. I have no idea what the right prices are, and I know for 
a fact that some publishers will try everything possible to wring 
every possible dollar out of this; but over time conventions for 
pricing will arise.

Setting up a service like this will take a great deal of time and 
reflection, and the best service will not please everybody.  We 
can point out everything that is wrong with clearly articulated 
licenses and an attempt to come to fair pricing, or we can look 
for practical ways to get publishers and libraries on the, er, 
same page.

Joe Esposito

On 10/20/06, Toby.GREEN@oecd.org <Toby.GREEN@oecd.org> wrote:
> 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