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