From: Laura Quilter <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 08:06:45 -0500

A university might "acknowledge" such a thing, but that's would
certainly not meet the requirements of the Copyright Act governing
transfers, which clearly require a written transfer from the author.

Nevertheless, I agree that any library seeing such a clause should strike it.

----------------------------------
Laura Markstein Quilter / [log in to unmask]
Attorney, Geek, Militant Librarian, Teacher

Copyright and Information Policy Librarian
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
[log in to unmask]

Lecturer, Simmons College, GSLIS
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On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 3:44 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 03:08:27 +0000
>
> Perhaps as fallout on unsigned and unrecoverable copyright transfers,
> a number of publishers are trying in their licenses with libraries to
> get an "acknowledgment that publisher owns copyright" of the licensed
> material. At UNC Charlotte we do not "acknowledge" what we do not in
> fact know.
>
> This is one of those areas.
>
> If the publisher gets  written acknowledgment in a license that they
> are the copyright owners, well, game over if we ever get to court. No
> proof of ownership necessary.
>
> Several major international publishers have tried this little bit of
> let's make the  elephant in the house disappear routine with such
> clauses and the most we will do is acknowledge that they "state" the
> content is proprietary. There is no way we can "know" it is all
> copyrighted and owned by  the publishing house.
>
> I wish publishers would quit their little  gotcha contract traps with
> libraries. But that would mean sales would have to read and understand
> the outrageous stuff their lawyers put into these contracts. And who
> do we get when we raise issues with contract language? Quite often the
> lawyer that wrote it in the first place.
>
> Chuck Hamaker
> UNC Charlotte