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 [log in to unmask] 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