From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 04:35:14 +0000

Denise,

I am with you.  That clause was not intended to allow providers to
charge for a TDM as a service – the costs envisioned in the LibLicense
clause are only for preparation of media.  If one is asking for
*delivery* of files (e.g. on physical media), or for files to be
prepared in a particular format for a specific use, there is arguably
some modest cost to prepare and deliver files in that way.  This is
the only type of cost envisioned by the LibLicense clause – it was not
at all intended to allow or encourage providers to charge for the
content, much less for TDM services per se.  In fact the intent is
completely the opposite - the content has already been licensed, so
there should be no costs other than to extract files and ship them (or
make them available via ftp, which should involve less or even no
cost).   There should be no question of purchasing content.  We were
trying to recognize that there could be modest additional costs
associated with file preparation and delivery, but that any costs
would be limited to that.  And if TDM is being performed directly
against the database itself, there should be no such cost at all.

Perhaps the language could be made clearer on this point, but that is
definitely the intent.  If ProQuest or other providers are asking for
exorbitant funds simply to extract and supply files, that seems
patently ridiculous.  I would question what costs they claim to be
recovering.

best

Ivy

*******

From: Denise Troll Covey <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2015 13:32:31 +0000

Ivy,

I'm aware of and grateful for the language about TDM in the model
license. My problem is that the sentence pertinent to my post about
pricing is not particularly helpful:

“If Licensee or Authorized Users request the Licensor to deliver or
otherwise prepare copies of the Licensed Materials for text and data
mining purposes, any fees charged by Licensor shall be solely for
preparing and delivering such copies on a time and materials basis.”


As I interpret this sentence, all a publisher needs to do – as
ProQuest did in follow-up discussion – is say the fees are solely for
cost recovery.

When publishers calculate prices based on “cost recovery,” how many
customers is the cost spread across?  I suspect they would have
significantly more customers for TDM if the cost were significantly
lower.  A key point for libraries in assessing affordability is the
number of people likely to exercise the TDM rights.  Unlike the cost
of licensing a database that will be used by hundreds if not thousands
of people, at present TDM rights are likely to be exercised by a very
small group. Libraries cannot afford to spend $$$$$ to purchase
content for one researcher or a handful of researchers. The well would
quickly run dry.  I doubt whether researchers will be willing to – or
permitted to – use grant $$$$$ to purchase content for text and data
mining.

And do we really think prices will plummet after commercial
publishers/vendors recoup their investment in generating XML files and
posting them to the cloud or a server from which they can produce hard
drive copies?  The ongoing cost for maintaining these files will be
significantly lower than the one-time set-up costs, but I doubt that
prices will plummet. I can imagine shareholders frowning at the
prospect and publishers claiming that maintaining and upgrading the
infrastructure, functionality, format etc. necessitate the high
ongoing costs.

I think publishers are trying to figure out what the market will bear.
From my perspective, the price is unbearable.

Denise

Denise Troll Covey
Scholarly Communications Librarian
Carnegie Mellon University
4909 Frew St, Hunt Library
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8040-822X