"Shibboleet"
http://xkcd.com/806/
Friday, October 22, 2010
Something that I just can't stop thinking about: Value and cost
I keep thinking about the value of information. Value is important for information because it often determines cost. And as we all know, costs for licensed databases are extremely high. How did they get to be that way? How does a journal article go from something that someone essentially gives away to being in a database that costs thousands of dollars? Authors of journal articles generally hand over their material and copyrights to the journal publishers. The publishers then repackage the material into journals, both print and online. Those journals are then put into databases. So a question that I have is if this is the general process for scholarly article publication, then why are some databases so much more expensive than others?
For instance, many chemistry and physical science journals are notoriously expensive. What is so special about these journals, and the databases in which they are distributed? Now, I understand that publishers can make some claims that they add value to the journals. Yes, they might lay out the article and perform some copyediting (maybe). But what is so special about chemistry databases, over say nursing or library science databases (which are generally much cheaper)? Could journal publishers/database providers really be adding that much value to chemistry journals but not to nursing journals? It's really hard to believe.
I also keep pondering the notions of excludability and rivalry. Usually information goods often exhibit characteristics of non-excludability (that is, you don't exclude others from using the good) and non-rivalry (that is, you can share the good and it doesn't get used up). Licensed databases really push information goods into the realm of excludability: if you don't pay for this information, you can't have access to it. The information generally will not lose value if more people know it (although, that really depends on the situation, and would not be applicable to trade secrets for instance.) So we can still share this information (i.e., scholarly journals) without all the knowledge being used up, but now we are strictly delimiting who has access to that knowledge. (This is starting to remind me a lot about that Open Access presentation I did last year...)
All in all, these thoughts bring me back to this idea of value and cost. Information can be free and easily shared. So if that is the case, why are these databases so expensive?
For instance, many chemistry and physical science journals are notoriously expensive. What is so special about these journals, and the databases in which they are distributed? Now, I understand that publishers can make some claims that they add value to the journals. Yes, they might lay out the article and perform some copyediting (maybe). But what is so special about chemistry databases, over say nursing or library science databases (which are generally much cheaper)? Could journal publishers/database providers really be adding that much value to chemistry journals but not to nursing journals? It's really hard to believe.
I also keep pondering the notions of excludability and rivalry. Usually information goods often exhibit characteristics of non-excludability (that is, you don't exclude others from using the good) and non-rivalry (that is, you can share the good and it doesn't get used up). Licensed databases really push information goods into the realm of excludability: if you don't pay for this information, you can't have access to it. The information generally will not lose value if more people know it (although, that really depends on the situation, and would not be applicable to trade secrets for instance.) So we can still share this information (i.e., scholarly journals) without all the knowledge being used up, but now we are strictly delimiting who has access to that knowledge. (This is starting to remind me a lot about that Open Access presentation I did last year...)
All in all, these thoughts bring me back to this idea of value and cost. Information can be free and easily shared. So if that is the case, why are these databases so expensive?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Georgia State Update
There are some very recent udpates to the Georgia State case. I suggest that you head on over to Scholarly Communications @ Duke's Going forward with Georgia State lawsuit and LibraryLaw Blog's Who infringed at Georgia State? for more information.
There was a recent ruling on summary judgments for the Georgia State case. An important part of the ruling is that the court did not find Georgia State guilty of direct and vicarious copyright infringement, but the case will continue based on concerns of contributory infringement. Discarding the direct and vicarious copyright concerns is good news for Georgia State. Overall, this recent ruling is more favorable to Georgia State than the plaintiffs. The judge presiding over the case has included discussions of the economics that influence providing resources for students. Also, the judge indicated the plaintiffs have a narrow window for proving infringement. Finally, the judge seemed to look favorably on the fact that Georgia State has since changed its copyright policy that brings it more in line with what other universities do. (See the Duke blog for more info on the details.)
LibraryLaw blog makes an interesting point about indirect infringement: if the university (or here, the individual defendants) are not the direct infringers, then who are? Librarians who did the scanning? The faculty that requested the individual scans? Or the many students who would have downloaded the scans? It's an interesting question that has the potential to influence the case. (One of the things that I have learned about the practice of law in the US is that there is often a very pragmatic approach. Judges often seemed concerned about what will actually happen after a court ruling, and they do not just have an ungrounded-from-reality, theoretical approach.) It seems like it would be crazy to go after each individual who had ever been involved in e-reserves, so I suppose the individual plaintiffs had to do.
LibraryLaw blog also points out an interesting tidbit: turns out that the Copyright Clearance Center is paying for 50% of this legal action. Isn't it upsetting that the institutions who pay CCC are now being indirectly sued by them?
There was a recent ruling on summary judgments for the Georgia State case. An important part of the ruling is that the court did not find Georgia State guilty of direct and vicarious copyright infringement, but the case will continue based on concerns of contributory infringement. Discarding the direct and vicarious copyright concerns is good news for Georgia State. Overall, this recent ruling is more favorable to Georgia State than the plaintiffs. The judge presiding over the case has included discussions of the economics that influence providing resources for students. Also, the judge indicated the plaintiffs have a narrow window for proving infringement. Finally, the judge seemed to look favorably on the fact that Georgia State has since changed its copyright policy that brings it more in line with what other universities do. (See the Duke blog for more info on the details.)
LibraryLaw blog makes an interesting point about indirect infringement: if the university (or here, the individual defendants) are not the direct infringers, then who are? Librarians who did the scanning? The faculty that requested the individual scans? Or the many students who would have downloaded the scans? It's an interesting question that has the potential to influence the case. (One of the things that I have learned about the practice of law in the US is that there is often a very pragmatic approach. Judges often seemed concerned about what will actually happen after a court ruling, and they do not just have an ungrounded-from-reality, theoretical approach.) It seems like it would be crazy to go after each individual who had ever been involved in e-reserves, so I suppose the individual plaintiffs had to do.
LibraryLaw blog also points out an interesting tidbit: turns out that the Copyright Clearance Center is paying for 50% of this legal action. Isn't it upsetting that the institutions who pay CCC are now being indirectly sued by them?
Guest lecturers are a fun alternative to regular lecture!
No offense, dear Professor K, but hey, that was really fun! Many thanks to Ms. C, who came to visit our class. I really enjoyed working on those hypothetical scenarios. Even after several weeks of Electronic Resource Management, plus a course in Information Ethics and Policy, a lot of this stuff is still confusing, or at the very least, not obvious.
How do you really apply fair use standards to e-reserve, and other library, situations? Working with the scenarios really made me realize that there isn't an obvious way to answer that question. I think that for 2 out of the 4 scenarios, I thought, "Well, clearly this is what any library would do." And then Ms. C would say, "This is what we did..." and it was the exact opposite of what I though. I tend to think that I am very pro-fair use and have a "use-it-or-lose-it" mentality. But I found that I tended to give a more-risk averse answer.
I learned that there are "riskier" decisions being made out there than I would have thought. This is apparent from our activity, and also from the Georgia State readings. To which I say, Yay! I think that is a good thing. As representatives of institutions with few resources, we need to take advantage of the few benefits that we have coming our way. (Although, you might ignore the low-resources part altogether and just focus on the fact that we should take advantage of a right built into the law.) That's getting back to that use-it-or-lose it idea. So in the future, I can be reassured that there are institutions pushing back on those who would force an overly broad concept of copyright on everyone else.
How do you really apply fair use standards to e-reserve, and other library, situations? Working with the scenarios really made me realize that there isn't an obvious way to answer that question. I think that for 2 out of the 4 scenarios, I thought, "Well, clearly this is what any library would do." And then Ms. C would say, "This is what we did..." and it was the exact opposite of what I though. I tend to think that I am very pro-fair use and have a "use-it-or-lose-it" mentality. But I found that I tended to give a more-risk averse answer.
I learned that there are "riskier" decisions being made out there than I would have thought. This is apparent from our activity, and also from the Georgia State readings. To which I say, Yay! I think that is a good thing. As representatives of institutions with few resources, we need to take advantage of the few benefits that we have coming our way. (Although, you might ignore the low-resources part altogether and just focus on the fact that we should take advantage of a right built into the law.) That's getting back to that use-it-or-lose it idea. So in the future, I can be reassured that there are institutions pushing back on those who would force an overly broad concept of copyright on everyone else.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
UCITA: This is a terrible idea!
The commercial interests of this world do not cease to amaze!
UCITA is a proposed state contract law that would encourage uniform licensing standards for "information in electronic form," which usually means software and anything subject to click-through or web-wrap licensing. The law makes such non-negotiated licenses even more enforceable, to the benefit of licensors/vendors. Major proponents are large technology companies, including Microsoft and AOL. Who is opposed to it? Almost everyone else! Libraries, retail and manufacturing companies, consumer advocates, and financial institutions all have cried out against UCITA.
It only passed in two states (Virginia and Maryland). "Great, I don't live in either of those states!," you say? Wrong! A software license with a choice of law provision can choose either Virginia or Maryland as the governing state. (Thanks for nothing, Virginia and Maryland legislators!) Consequently, a handful of states have enacted "bomb-shelter" legislation to protect their residents from such shenanigans. (You win my heart again, Iowa!)
Once again, I'm annoyed about large commercial interests taking advantage of a widely distributed, less rich, less powerful group of interests. I can understand that software vendors want to protect their product. But click-through licenses already exist. (Although are not always upheld in a court of law, but often are (ProCD v. Z).) But when the American Bar Association's working group on UTICA says that it "is a very complex statute that is daunting for even knowledgeable lawyers to understand" you know something has gone terribly wrong. When even the lawyers cannot figure out the legalese, the rest of use have no hope! This is bad lawmaking.
Once again we are hitting upon this question of putting too much into licenses/contracts/laws/guidelines/whatever. CONFU ran up against this problem as previously noted. Here, UTICA would likely dissolve the careful balance of federal copyright law in favor of the software companies. Contracts, laws, and guidelines (usually, not always) make things easy by stating an explicit set of rules that coordinate people's actions when it comes to content use. It could be a good thing if everyone was on the same page. But it is a bad thing when there are competing interests--you lose any flexibility and balance by writing such rules down. (And when you are up against Microsoft, how well do you think that will end for libraries?)
UCITA is a proposed state contract law that would encourage uniform licensing standards for "information in electronic form," which usually means software and anything subject to click-through or web-wrap licensing. The law makes such non-negotiated licenses even more enforceable, to the benefit of licensors/vendors. Major proponents are large technology companies, including Microsoft and AOL. Who is opposed to it? Almost everyone else! Libraries, retail and manufacturing companies, consumer advocates, and financial institutions all have cried out against UCITA.
It only passed in two states (Virginia and Maryland). "Great, I don't live in either of those states!," you say? Wrong! A software license with a choice of law provision can choose either Virginia or Maryland as the governing state. (Thanks for nothing, Virginia and Maryland legislators!) Consequently, a handful of states have enacted "bomb-shelter" legislation to protect their residents from such shenanigans. (You win my heart again, Iowa!)
Once again, I'm annoyed about large commercial interests taking advantage of a widely distributed, less rich, less powerful group of interests. I can understand that software vendors want to protect their product. But click-through licenses already exist. (Although are not always upheld in a court of law, but often are (ProCD v. Z).) But when the American Bar Association's working group on UTICA says that it "is a very complex statute that is daunting for even knowledgeable lawyers to understand" you know something has gone terribly wrong. When even the lawyers cannot figure out the legalese, the rest of use have no hope! This is bad lawmaking.
Once again we are hitting upon this question of putting too much into licenses/contracts/laws/guidelines/whatever. CONFU ran up against this problem as previously noted. Here, UTICA would likely dissolve the careful balance of federal copyright law in favor of the software companies. Contracts, laws, and guidelines (usually, not always) make things easy by stating an explicit set of rules that coordinate people's actions when it comes to content use. It could be a good thing if everyone was on the same page. But it is a bad thing when there are competing interests--you lose any flexibility and balance by writing such rules down. (And when you are up against Microsoft, how well do you think that will end for libraries?)
Harris's Licensing Digital Content
This week, we finished reading Lesley Ellen Harris's Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians (2nd ed.). This book is a good introduction to the nitty-gritty details of licensing in a library setting. It has a very practical focus and would make a good reference book if you were ever to find yourself in a situation where you needed to negotiate a license. I am sure any librarian making acquisition decisions, especially those new to doing so, could learn something from this book.
The bulk of the book outlines the need-to-know aspects of licensing. It has a very introductory and sometimes encyclopedic feel. Key digital licensing clauses and boilerplate clauses each get their own chapters. Chapter 1 "When to License" provides a nice introduction to both the book and licensing in general. However, it seems like many librarians will know when to license, as someone or something is pushing for service--some parts feel a little redundant or obvious. Some of the more interesting parts in this chapter are key elements to look for when licensing, including ease of access, "one-stop" transactions, etc. Harris includes nice lists of things to watch out for when acquiring networked content. I find the section on model licenses very helpful because it lists many positive aspects of model licenses (for instance, industry consistency) and negative aspects (lack of flexibility). It would be good to keep these positive and negative characteristics in mind because they might be easy to miss when using a model license.
Other concepts covered that seemed less obvious included interlibrary loan, libraries being responsible for users, and global use of content. Interlibrary loan is often complicated enough without the additional layer of demands placed by varying licensing contracts. It's a good idea to try and keep those demands simple, so as to not make ILL overly complicated. Another important concern is libraries not being responsible for users. Harris makes a good point by saying that libraries should not promise something that they cannot enforce. If a library has no one to monitor patron use (they usually don't), then they should not agree to do so. I imagine that many content providers would prefer, and perhaps pressure, libraries into agreeing to monitor use. It is important to agree to only that which you can accomplish. Another good point made in the book is use on a global scale. This might mean licensing works that are found in other countries, but also allowing your own patrons to use content outside of your own country. I found myself thinking of my many grad student friends who did their dissertation research abroad and how different their experiences might have been if they could not have accessed UW's databases because they were in another country. Researchers travel abroad to do research frequently enough that it would be hard to ignore them as a patron group. Copyright concerns across countries are also important to keep in mind. There seem to be many places where licensing could go wrong if you were not aware of the various limitations that potentially come with licensed content.
I found Chapter 6 "Un-Intimidating Negotiations" to be one of the more interesting chapters in the book. Harris strikes a surprisingly positive note in this chapter. She takes a tone that most things are negotiable, even the presumed "non-negotiable" parts of a contract. (I think that what she means is that it never hurts to ask--you probably will get a no, but you might get a yes.) She does acknowledge that "Librarians often feel powerless entering into, and during the process of, negotiating. Content owners like publishers and aggregators seem to have all the money and plenty of potential customers (and therefore power), while librarians often have only limited resources. However in a negotiation, you are seeking an end result that works for both parties" (94). I completely agree with the first sentence there. I imagine that many librarians must look at negotiations as a lost cause--the Elseviers of the world have so much money and power, why would they negotiate in good faith with any library, large or small? Harris makes it seem that with good negotiation, libraries and content providers can get what they want out of any deal. My response is: Really? Then why are libraries up in arms over the mounting cost of digital content? I am sure that libraries can get what they want in a negotiation--eased ILL restriction, unlimited access for any user that walks into the library, global use, etc. I bet that the vendors would be happy to agree to those terms. But at what cost? You can only negotiate so much without it costing more and more. (Or alternatively, lose rights or access so that databases costs less.) Harris's peppy tone belies that fact that it is still very difficult to negotiate an inflated bottom line.
Or have libraries just not been clever enough to negotiate harder? I don't really think that is the case. Libraries want to provide as much access as they can afford to patrons who are entirely ignorant of cost. It really does seem like libraries are stick in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to balancing the needs of patrons while negotiating price and rights with content owners. Maybe I am just too pessimistic and cynical when it comes to discussions about vendors, rights, and cost.
All in all, though, I found Licensing Digital Content to be quite handy in a practical way. I think that I could make use of it if I were ever to find myself in a situation that required licensing digital content.
The bulk of the book outlines the need-to-know aspects of licensing. It has a very introductory and sometimes encyclopedic feel. Key digital licensing clauses and boilerplate clauses each get their own chapters. Chapter 1 "When to License" provides a nice introduction to both the book and licensing in general. However, it seems like many librarians will know when to license, as someone or something is pushing for service--some parts feel a little redundant or obvious. Some of the more interesting parts in this chapter are key elements to look for when licensing, including ease of access, "one-stop" transactions, etc. Harris includes nice lists of things to watch out for when acquiring networked content. I find the section on model licenses very helpful because it lists many positive aspects of model licenses (for instance, industry consistency) and negative aspects (lack of flexibility). It would be good to keep these positive and negative characteristics in mind because they might be easy to miss when using a model license.
Other concepts covered that seemed less obvious included interlibrary loan, libraries being responsible for users, and global use of content. Interlibrary loan is often complicated enough without the additional layer of demands placed by varying licensing contracts. It's a good idea to try and keep those demands simple, so as to not make ILL overly complicated. Another important concern is libraries not being responsible for users. Harris makes a good point by saying that libraries should not promise something that they cannot enforce. If a library has no one to monitor patron use (they usually don't), then they should not agree to do so. I imagine that many content providers would prefer, and perhaps pressure, libraries into agreeing to monitor use. It is important to agree to only that which you can accomplish. Another good point made in the book is use on a global scale. This might mean licensing works that are found in other countries, but also allowing your own patrons to use content outside of your own country. I found myself thinking of my many grad student friends who did their dissertation research abroad and how different their experiences might have been if they could not have accessed UW's databases because they were in another country. Researchers travel abroad to do research frequently enough that it would be hard to ignore them as a patron group. Copyright concerns across countries are also important to keep in mind. There seem to be many places where licensing could go wrong if you were not aware of the various limitations that potentially come with licensed content.
I found Chapter 6 "Un-Intimidating Negotiations" to be one of the more interesting chapters in the book. Harris strikes a surprisingly positive note in this chapter. She takes a tone that most things are negotiable, even the presumed "non-negotiable" parts of a contract. (I think that what she means is that it never hurts to ask--you probably will get a no, but you might get a yes.) She does acknowledge that "Librarians often feel powerless entering into, and during the process of, negotiating. Content owners like publishers and aggregators seem to have all the money and plenty of potential customers (and therefore power), while librarians often have only limited resources. However in a negotiation, you are seeking an end result that works for both parties" (94). I completely agree with the first sentence there. I imagine that many librarians must look at negotiations as a lost cause--the Elseviers of the world have so much money and power, why would they negotiate in good faith with any library, large or small? Harris makes it seem that with good negotiation, libraries and content providers can get what they want out of any deal. My response is: Really? Then why are libraries up in arms over the mounting cost of digital content? I am sure that libraries can get what they want in a negotiation--eased ILL restriction, unlimited access for any user that walks into the library, global use, etc. I bet that the vendors would be happy to agree to those terms. But at what cost? You can only negotiate so much without it costing more and more. (Or alternatively, lose rights or access so that databases costs less.) Harris's peppy tone belies that fact that it is still very difficult to negotiate an inflated bottom line.
Or have libraries just not been clever enough to negotiate harder? I don't really think that is the case. Libraries want to provide as much access as they can afford to patrons who are entirely ignorant of cost. It really does seem like libraries are stick in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to balancing the needs of patrons while negotiating price and rights with content owners. Maybe I am just too pessimistic and cynical when it comes to discussions about vendors, rights, and cost.
All in all, though, I found Licensing Digital Content to be quite handy in a practical way. I think that I could make use of it if I were ever to find myself in a situation that required licensing digital content.
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