Obtaining Copyright Permission to Digitize Published Works Remains a Significant Barrier. A review of: George, Carole A. “Testing the Barriers to Digital Libraries: A Study Seeking Copyright Permission to Digitize Published Works.” New Library World 106.1214/1215 (2005): 332-42.

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice

关键词: Copyright;    Digitization;    Print Publications;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Objective – To assess the effectiveness andefficiency of the copyright permission seekingprocess and to suggestimprovements in order to improveoutcomes.
Design – Workflow study.
Setting – Carnegie Mellon UniversityLibraries, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.Sample – A random sample of titlespublished 1999-2001 was selected from thelibrary’s circulating collection. Aftereliminating duplicates, technical reports,theses, dissertations, and missing items, thesample comprised 337 titles. Of these titles,70% were books, and 56% were fromcommercial publishers. From this aworking sample of 273 titles was derived,comprising those titles protected bycopyright and with the rights owner clearlyindicated. About 73% of this workingsample appeared to be out-of-print; theirmedian publication year was 1981.
Method – In this two year study (1999-2001),a random sample of books was selected, andpertinent bibliographic and copyrightholder information researched and recorded.Permission letters were sent and, six weekslater, follow-up letters were sent to nonrespondents.The letter allowedrespondents four options:1. Grant full permission to digitize thework and provide unrestricted Webaccess;2. Grant permission to digitize thework and provide read-only Webaccess, limited to Carnegie MellonUniversity users;3. Declare that they do not hold therights, and hopefully provideinformation to identify and locatethe actual rights holder;4. Deny permission for digitization.Results were then recorded and analyzed.
Main results – Of the 273 letters mailed, aclear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply was obtained for justover half (52%) of the documents. Sixteenpercent of the rights holders could not befound (the letter was returned, or a referralproved impossible to locate and contact).Another 25% of the copyright holderssimply did not reply, and 7% wereotherwise problematic. Of the 143 ‘yes’ or‘no’ responses, 54% denied permission,while 46% granted permission. (Note: thesepercentage figures appear to be erroneouslyreversed in Table 1 of George’s article.)Therefore, of the overall working sample of273 titles, permission to digitize wasobtained for only 24% of the titles.A substantial portion of the permissions (41of 66, or 62%) carried some restriction. Thisrepresents 15% of the total working sample.Only a few restriction requests were deemedtoo great to make use of the permission.Commercial publishers who made up 58%of the working sample granted permissionat the lowest rate (13%).Response time averaged three months fromthe time the initial letter was sent until a‘yes’ or ‘no’ response was received.Negative responses averaged a bit longerthan positive responses (101 days to 124days). However, some of this time wasattributable to delays in issuing follow-up orredirected request letters (a step required in60% of cases), owing to the limited staffresources at Carnegie Mellon.The copyright ownership had changed in23% of the sample, requiring more than oneand up to three different addresses to becontacted before a response was received orthe effort was terminated.
Conclusions – The study concluded that thepermission rate would remain low unlessadditional efforts were made in thepermission-seeking process (e.g., personalcontacts in addition to letters and emails), orunless more selective approaches wereemployed (e.g., targeting non-commercialpublishers). It also concluded that theprocess to seek copyright permissions wasneither quick nor easy, suggesting the needfor dedicated staff time and a readilyaccessible database of publisher contactinformation. As a result, subsequentprojects have improved their permission seekingprocess, focusing on more noncommercialpublishers or older publicationdates, and asking publishers for blanketconsent for all of their out-of-print titles.

【 授权许可】

Unknown