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
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:48:16 +0000

Denise,

The language in the new model Liblicense agreement addresses both TDM rights and potential costs.  It reads:

Text and Data Mining. Authorized Users may use the Licensed Materials to perform and engage in text and/or data mining activities for academic research, scholarship, and other educational purposes, utilize and share the results of text and/or data mining in their scholarly work, and make the results available for use by others, so long as the purpose is not to create a product for use by third parties that would substitute for the Licensed Materials. Licensor will cooperate with Licensee and Authorized Users as reasonably necessary in making the Licensed Materials available in a manner and form most useful to the Authorized User.  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.

CDL hasn't attempted to negotiate this with ProQuest, but this is the basis on which I would seek to negotiate -

Best,

Ivy Anderson
Director of Collections
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President