From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 09:08:22 -0500

I can speak to the history of how copying came to be handled at Penn
State's main campus because I was involved in the process directly.

Initially, most coursepack copying was done by off-campus by
commercial entities like Kinko's, cooperating with student bookstores
run by privately held companies.

After the court decision in the Kinko's case in 1991, a lot changed.
That is when, for instance, the CCC first became involved with
academic copying, having previously focused almost entirely on the
corporate sector.

The operation of the Penn State bookstore was taken over by Barnes &
Noble sometime in the 1990s, which also changed the nature of the
potential liability, since as a commercial entity it became directly
subject to the Kinko's ruling (in theory, at least, since the ruling
applied as a precedent only in the Second Circuit). The library had
become involved to some extent in coursepack copying along the way
also, as did the Business Services division, which had purchased a
number of Xerox Docutechs enabling high-volume copying.

In order to exercise more control and reduce legal liability, the
university administration--with advice from me and others including
outside legal counsel--decided to centralize all print copying on
campus with Business Services, establishing at the same time a new
Copyright Clearance Center to handle all permissions requests for
faculty who used the service.

Some key elements of this new arrangement were that the university
provided an indemnity to B&N for its selling any coursepacks that were
produced through the new service with permissions cleared by the
on-campus CCC, and that all faculty who used this service would be
legally defended by the university against any copyright infringement
claims, whereas if they chose to use off-campus commercial copy shops
the university would not defend faculty against such claims.

The PSU Libraries did become more involved as e-reserves grew, and
some copying was done outside the control of either the Business
Services or Libraries purview by faculty using the course-management
system, though not nearly to the extent, I believe, as this came to be
done on some other college campuses.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:34:16 -0500
>
> Does anyone know of a history of the rise of copy centers on academic
> campuses? I am curious if print services have long been separated from
> something like the copyright clearance center on campus? My hunch is
> that they began as a centralizing center for the costs of the now
> cheaper machinery - i.e. buy a big Xerox instead of relying on 30 or
> 40 mimeograph machines. Now there are places where you get fliers made
> or a personal printout, but mass printing is (but maybe not for long)
> handled through centralized centers meant to protect universities (and
> their unwitting faculty - I speak as one of the witless) from
> copyright liability. Was this a result of the Kinkos case or some
> other set of practices or policies?  And where did the library fit
> into this?  How much of this work (IPR contracting/policing for
> digital reserves) does the library now do and is it an increasing
> amount?
>
> Perhaps it is just as useful to call it "the history of the course
> packet" but I'm not sure if someone has delved into that exhilarating
> topic with quite the vigor one would hope.  If there is no work on
> either of these things, personal/institutional anecdotes are welcome.
>
> To summarize the questions: How does the above hypothesis compare to
> your knowledge or experience on the topic? And can you give any
> details about how your library has evolved in this direction?
>
> In some ways, it seems like the main conflict in the Georgia State
> University case, and its appeal, is about some publishers - and,
> according to Jen Howard's piece today+, some authors - are seeing the
> library as an institution that may have a very different understanding
> of fair use than the people running the copy shop, who have been (in
> the minds of publishers) appropriately disciplined.
>
> Or, for another turn of the screw, the Copyright Clearance Center also
> has an interest in taking it away from the librarians, or routinizing
> the printshop on campus to produce clearance for IPR as it prints out
> the documents on demand for students or provides them digitally if
> need be.   This would be possible if there was both a fee structure
> and chain of economic command that led to them being the routinizing
> middlemen for all such scholarly transactions.   The library is
> already being forced to deal with those publishers on the other end -
> as the dutiful publishers of the scholarly journals that now comprise
> the bulk of library budgets - through elaborate contractual
> negotiations over access to resources they provide to the faculty free
> of charge. So maybe the goal is to have the library contract for all
> of the CCC content - the non Creative Commons answer to scholarly
> publishing, at lest for publishers.
>
> As they look ahead, it is clear that paying for use - which Rick
> Anderson has spoken a lot about here - is a likely future for library
> services. With a broad - or even uncertain, since it would be policed
> at many other institutional locations - definition of fair use it is
> less likely to make the necessary amount of money.  So the future of
> their business model involves making the CCC the copyright registry
> for higher ed, therefore able to contain the anarchic market in a
> centralized negotiator that can also set the prices on fair use the
> same way they have set them on per use articles.
>
> Of course this is also exactly what the judge told them they would
> need to do in order to win an appeal - they have to be able to point
> to the viability and availability of the market. I'm paraphrasing,
> perhaps incorrectly (please let me know), but my understanding this
> aspect of her judgement was that the articles (or in this case, book
> chapters) were not available in modular digital form, so even if there
> was a market, the friction to buying it was increased by the fact that
> the publisher didn't sell it that way. Therefore it was fair use in
> some part because it was one of the few ways for the faculty to make
> those digital reserves available to the students.  As a faculty
> member, I would say they are late to the party since more of this
> sharing is happening on Moodle now, but they need a beachhead in this
> battle.
>
> And the library is already prepared to carry out this intellectual and
> political acculturation. So just as many academic publishers are
> haggling over course packs, perpetual access, and ILL in relation to
> digital scholarly journals and databases, they can routinize the
> legalities of digital course packs. I suspect the fly in the ointment
> is that fewer folks in the library are interested in performing this
> role after being badgered in the other, but maybe that is just my own
> misperception of the situation.
>
> In any case, the GSU appeal appears to be much more complex than
> publishers vs. the libraries. Authors in the mix make it even more
> interesting. It is important to think about that factor because it is
> likely in direct proportion to the holdouts on Open Access.
>
> Sorry, that's enough for today. Consider these scribblings of a sort
> of outside observer as grist for the mill. Perhaps I am wrong on every
> count, but am trying to understand this transformation and the
> technological, political, cultural, and economic positions the case
> represents.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sean Andrews
>
> + Jen Howard's piece on GSU appeal:
> http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/publishers-will-appeal-e-reserves-decision-that-favored-georgia-state-u/39732?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
>
> Cf: this quote, about halfway down the page, SAGE CEO
>
>  Mr. Simqu said he had personally contacted more than 50 SAGE textbook authors to sound them out on whether to appeal the decision. "All but two of the authors not only were supportive but felt very strongly, very passionately that it was critical SAGE continue with this appeal," he told reporters.