An interview with Rosemary Chase, Copyright Officer of GMU

When Rosemary Chase was first hired by George Mason University (GMU) more than 15 years ago, her main copyright focus was coursepacks. How times have changed. Recently, Copyright Clearance Center chatted with the GMU copyright officer to get her insight into current content usage trends and what her campus is doing to promote respect for intellectual property rights.

Excerpts:

Q: Tell us about your role at George Mason University and how it has evolved.

A: I started here in 1990 in print services. By 2000, I was hired by the libraries because they needed someone to help with all kinds of copyright permissions, not just for printing. Courseware was coming into being. People wanted to digitize things and broadcast them on TV for distance education. Now I work with a lot of people all over campus on copyright issues.

Q: Talk about some of the copyright and content usage trends and challenges you see.

A: We have a lot of electronic databases, for which we pay a lot of money. I have an objection to the fact that many of them do not address electronic reserves in their licenses. Or they specifically do not allow electronic reserve linking. I don’t know if it’s the databases or the newspapers they represent that won’t allow us to link to articles.

Another issue I’m dealing with is that we’re getting a lot more permission requests for digitized book chapters. This has caused us to examine who is taking advantage of our generosity with electronic reserves, since the library gets the permissions and pays the royalty fees. We’re paying the royalty fees, so we’re not doing anything wrong. It just seems like sometimes students should just buy the book.

Q: What other trends have you seen?

A: I’ve consulted with our coursepack producers on campus and they have seen a reduction in the use of coursepacks. For a while, it was going up and down. Some of the professors would do coursepacks and then the students would say they want the material in electronic reserves. So the professors would offer it in electronic reserves, and then they would go back to coursepacks. Now faculty can’t make up their minds which way they want to go, because they can’t please all of their students. So now we’re paying for permissions for both uses, because faculty want to make the material available to their students electronically and in coursepacks.

Q: What are the biggest challenges you face today that you didn’t have to deal with five years ago?

A: There is more courseware use, like WebCT and Blackboard. Also, people want to use more music and images and other multimedia. So that makes my life interesting.

Q: So you deal with copyright issues around the use of text material as well as other types of protected content?

A: Yes. And multimedia issues are only going to get more complicated. For example, now our music librarian is talking about streaming music into the electronic reserves system. Other universities are already doing it. Plus we’re dealing with movie rights as well, for the use of movie clips in classes.

Q: Given all the news coverage on copyright issues over the last several years, are new students more copyright-savvy than they used to be?

A: I’d like to say that it’s improved, but it really hasn’t.

Q: Can you talk about the safeguards GMU has put into place to prevent unauthorized use and distribution of intellectual property?

A: We have a copyright policy and procedures, which are readily available to anyone online. Using courseware has one set of procedures. Using electronic reserves has another. Using coursepacks has yet another. And using media has still another set. I refer to all of these guidelines and tell faculty about what their options are to legally provide materials to their students. In my workshops I remind people that the university will stand up for anyone who follows the policy. If they don’t follow the policy, they’re on their own.

To raise student awareness of copyright law and electronic reserves content, we’ve posted signs on all of the PC’s and printers in the library and labs on campus. So in addition to just posting notices on the university copy machines, we also post it on all of the PC’s.

Q: What keeps you up at night?

A: For a while, there were administrators on campus who wanted to know exactly how many people were using WebCT. We have a number, but we don’t know who is using the courseware or who is digitizing articles on it. I tried every angle I could to get that information, but finding out would be an invasion of their privacy. I am planning on doing a survey, but we have to verify that the survey would be anonymous. We really want to know how many renegades we have on campus, and where we are in terms of how far we have to go to raise awareness.

Q: How do you educate faculty and staff about the right ways to use and share protected content?

A: I’ve increased the amount and types of workshops that I give. It’s not just about copyright and coursepacks anymore. One workshop is all about media. I offer another on fair use in the digital age. I also give workshops on ways to prevent plagiarism and file-sharing. My job is to inform the university. Even though this campus has been aware, there are always new people and new students. So it’s a never-ending job.

Share This

Everyone on campus seems to appreciate electronic course materials. After all, they are easier to distribute than paper coursepacks, and offer more convenient access than traditional library reserves. But mounting costs, including labor and copyright fees for these materials, have forced some college libraries to reconsider who will pay for this convenience in the future.

“We started out with a couple thousand dollars in 1998,” said Leah McGinnis Dunn, head of the R.B. House Undergraduate Library at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. “Since then, our copyright fees and labor costs have increased dramatically.”

Like many academic institutions, UNC does not charge student fees for e-reserves. But it is weighing all of its options for future funding of this increasingly popular service.

“We’re constantly trying to think of what we’re going to do if it goes up much beyond this year’s spending,” said Dunn. “We’ve talked about imposing limits on the number of articles that a particular course or instructor can have on per semester.”

UNC is also looking at ways to streamline the e-reserves process for its library staff. “It’s a really intensive process for our staff to have to seek these permissions and manage payment for thousands of articles every semester. We’ve talked about only paying for things that go through Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), so if it’s not in CCC’s catalog, then we won’t do it,” said Dunn. “We haven’t imposed that yet, but it’s certainly something we’d consider to help manage staff time.”

When Brigham Young University (BYU) administrators saw their e-reserve usage jump dramatically over the last three years, they too began listing possible alternate funding sources to take pressure off their library budget. “We’re looking at making the faculty more aware of the costs being incurred by them for this service, because right now it’s a seamless process,” said Susie Quartey, associate director of the Copyright Licensing Office at Brigham Young University. “They show up to reserve materials, walk away from it, and don’t have any idea necessarily that there are fees being paid.”

She shared some of the ideas BYU is exploring. “We’ve talked about providing a report on a departmental level, listing their usage and allowing them to determine if they want to set limits within their own areas,” said Quartey. “Another way is to possibly include this as a student fee. When we calculated it out, it averaged out to only a couple of dollars per student when we consider the entire student body. There’s a general university fund we could request permission to tap into for this purpose, because it’s such a necessary part of the students’ education.”

To reduce the amount of staff time required to process e-reserves, BYU developed an automated ordering system. The system allows instructors to place orders online and monitor when their requested material is available. Quartey says that eventually the system will include reporting components to enable her to pull data for annual reports and monitor usage of materials offered through her university’s e-reserve program.

Quartey, Dunn and George Mason University Copyright Officer Rosemary Chase all stressed that libraries facing the budget strain of e-reserves need the backing of their college administration. “From the very beginning, we’ve had support from the upper administration,” said Chase. “If you don’t have that, you’re really out of luck.”

Chase said her university’s e-reserves program has grown gradually over the last eight years and administrators have allocated the necessary funding so far. “I really like the idea that the library covers the costs for whoever decides to take advantage of it. That means that anybody and everybody can use it.”

Share This

An Interview with the Attorney who Took on Legg Mason

When a federal jury awarded newsletter publisher Lowry’s Reports more than $19 million in a copyright infringement suit against brokerage firm Legg Mason in 2003, the decision sent shock waves across corporate America. They later settled confidentially for a reported amount of about $12 million. Two years later, the plaintiff’s attorney in that case, Tom Kirby, is still busy litigating companies for infringement involving the unauthorized use and distribution of newsletter content. Copyright Clearance Center recently checked in with Kirby to learn why these types of cases are so prevalent and what companies should know to avoid infringement.

Excerpts:

Q: What is the lasting significance of the Lowry versus Legg Mason case?

Kirby: We have received reports of corporations inspired by the Legg Mason case that are undertaking the kind of proactive compliance review I’ve talked about, and that’s wonderful. The other real impact the case has had is that when infringement is detected, people are much quicker to realize that it is a significant problem and that they have to work with the publisher to resolve it, or there can be serious consequences. There’s no getting around the fact that Legg Mason was a particularly favorable result for the publisher. Everybody recognized that. Still, companies have said, “Gee, the downside is pretty big here.” That’s why we have achieved multi-million dollar and very high hundreds of thousands of dollar settlements.

Q: You filed several higher profile copyright infringement lawsuits this year against investment companies on behalf of newsletter publisher Grant’s Financial Publishing for unauthorized use and distribution of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. What can you tell us about those cases?

Kirby: There are three pending lawsuits right now, all in the Southern District of New York. Those are situations in which Grant’s received information that infringement was occurring. The defendants were contacted and asked to investigate and explain, and there was neither an innocent explanation nor a satisfactory resolution, so Grant’s did what it said it would do, which was to bring suit. If you won’t sue, there is no incentive to settle. By the way, we expect to finalize confidential settlements of those cases very shortly.

Q: How widespread is the problem of newsletter copyright infringement?

Kirby: We have a significant number of newsletter publisher clients that come to us when they get information about infringement. The great majority of these cases get worked out before we file suit. We file suit when people are not being realistic about their potential exposure. Our clients don’t like to make infringement claims, but this is their livelihood and, if folks ignore repeated warnings, what choice do publishers have?

We have had settlements in the millions of dollars. One of our clients recently announced a settlement of $800,000. The exposure can be very substantial when a significant business doesn’t monitor what its employees are doing, and they just develop a pattern of systematic copying. It can be very expensive.

Q: Why does the problem seem so acute with newsletters?

Kirby: I believe that, for whatever reason, newsletter subscribers take the copyright interests of newsletter publishers less seriously than they do the copyrights of other publications. People who would never think of buying one copy of a book, running off six copies and passing them along to their staff, will take one subscription to a newsletter and make copies for all the members of their staff. They know it’s wrong, but somehow it doesn’t seem to them as wrong.

Q: How do you find out that infringement is occurring within an organization?

Kirby: It happens in a lot of different ways. In the Legg Mason case, for example, a broker who had moved on from Legg Mason and who had enjoyed the publication courtesy of the infringing internal distribution there called up and wanted to subscribe. Many of our publishers have their people trained for good business purposes to say “how did you hear about us?” The fellow said “Well when I was at Legg Mason they sent around copies to everybody.” The publisher’s representative was alert and informed the head of the company.

Sometimes you’ll get somebody’s assistant, say a secretary, who will call up the publisher and say, “Mrs. Smith asked me to send around copies of your October 2^nd newsletter to her team but I can’t find a copy. Can you send me another?” If whoever gets that call at the publisher’s end is alert, that may trigger an investigation. There also are software protocols that to some extent can report on some kinds of copying, and that leads to information too.

Q: So inadvertent reports of infringement may be more common than reports from whistleblowers.

Kirby: That’s right. That is one important justification for statutory damages that are many, many times the actual loss of subscriptions. It’s because there’s only one chance in a thousand that somebody’s going to get caught. They need to know that if they do, it’s going to cost more than a thousand times what it would cost to do subscribe honestly.

Q: Is that the justification that was applied to the large size of the Lowry-Legg Mason case award?

Kirby: I think so. There were a number of factors in the Legg Mason case that contributed to the size of the award, but certainly one of the points that I emphasized to the jury was how difficult it was to detect this kind of activity. We pointed out that at Legg Mason, this kind of comprehensive copying apparently had been going on for more than a decade. This was really extensive copying. And it came to light only in this screwy, accidental way. I suggested to the jury that in deciding how much per issue to award, they should take into account how much of this activity is going on that is never detected and consider the need to have a consequence serious enough that people will try to avoid this activity even knowing they’re not very likely to get caught.

Q: Does the size of a defendant’s organization affect the size of the financial judgment in an infringement case?

Kirby: Yes, for several reasons. Two of the purposes of statutory damages are to deter and punish. Those are two related but different purposes. Both of those purposes require the consequences to be felt by the organization, and it’s just common sense that a large corporation has to pay more than “Ma and Pa Grocery” to punish them and to deter them. Also, I think juries expect large companies to be leaders in ethical behavior and to make a special effort to obey the law and respect the rights of smaller businesses and individuals.

Q: What advice would you offer to businesses to limit their liability?

Kirby: First, somebody in the organization has to take the issue seriously and has to elevate it. The second thing the organization needs to do is take an inventory of what is going on. I can tell you that what an inventory reveals is often shocking. Good people fall into bad habits. They know better, but somehow they just do. You need to find out what’s going on with respect to copying and distribution. Thirdly, you have to develop and effectively communicate policies to prevent infringement. Lastly and critically, you have to have a periodic review of compliance. Just sending around an e-mail may correct behavior for three weeks, but it sort of washes over people’s heads. We have assisted a couple of companies in doing an internal risk audit and compliance procedure. It’s something a general counsel who wants to focus on it can probably do himself. But it does have to be taken seriously, because one of the big problems is that employees aren’t taking this problem seriously and they’re not going to correct their behavior unless they understand that it really, really matters.

Share This

Google’s self-described mission to “organize the world’s information” is running into its biggest obstacle yet: angry publishers who contend that digitizing book collections flagrantly violates copyright law. Faced with the threat of legal action, Google recently announced that it would delay scanning any in-copyrighted works until November. But buying time is unlikely to resolve the issues, which go to the heart of the growing stress between the interests and legal rights of copyright holders and the easy access to information made possible by the Internet.

Google Print Library Project, announced in December 2004, is an initiative to digitize the book collections of several major libraries in order to make that content searchable online. Google already has agreements with libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library. The extent of the book collections to be digitized varies from library to library.

Publishers say that copyright law forbids digitizing copyrighted books without the authorization of rightsholders.

“This is extremely significant,” said Allan Adler, vice president of legal and governmental affairs at the Association of American Publishers. “This ranks as high as any issue that faces publishers and copyright owners in general.”

In its own letter to Google, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) called the project “systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale.”

Adam Smith, Google print product manager, announced on Google Blog in August that the company’s decision to stop scanning copyrighted books until November would give rightsholders time to notify Google of books they do not want digitized. “We think most publishers and authors will choose to participate in the publisher program in order to introduce their work to countless readers around the world,” wrote Smith. “But we know that not everyone agrees, and we want to do our best to respect their views too.”

But Google’s announcement failed to temper the anger of publishers. AAP President and CEO Patricia Schroeder said it “shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear.”

To many in the publishing industry, resolution of the dispute looked to be so out of reach that legal action seemed increasingly likely.

“If there is a lawsuit, it’s going to be a big one,” said Peter Givler, AAUP executive director. “This is going to be a major copyright case.”

The Potential Upside of Google’s Initiative

Google’s program has many supporters. Barbara Quint, columnist for Information Today magazine and former longtime reference librarian, says publishers who try to stop Google could be hurting the future of their industry. “You couldn’t be more short-sighted than to try to stop this,” she said. Quint described Google as a modern-day savior of the book industry by creating renewed interest in content that would otherwise sit on a library shelf. “The worst thing that could happen for all publishers and all authors is if Google says ‘so long,’” said Quint.

Quint said that publishers have a lot to gain by embracing the opportunities Google provides to monetize content in new ways. “The real threat is not Google. The real enemy is the Web,” she said. “It’s your greatest enemy and your greatest friend. If you don’t get on to the open Web at some level, you are going to become invisible, irrelevant and dead. And I’m not talking decades from now.”

Even the AAUP’s Peter Givler agreed that the ideal solution would make room for a project like Google’s. “I think most of the members of AAUP feel the library project has wonderful potential,” he said. “But there’s got to be some kind of agreement, some kind of understanding that brings it within the ambit of existing copyright law.”

Share This

Blogs are hot, but corporate employee blogging guidelines are not. Recent studies show that blogs, otherwise known as online journals or weblogs, are one of the fastest growing and potentially most important business communication tools to come along since the Internet. But most companies face liability risk, because they lack blogging policies for their employees.

Nearly 70 percent of companies do not have policies or guidelines for employee bloggers, according to a joint white paper released this fall by the global PR firm Edelman and marketing intelligence company Intelliseek. Blogging guidelines give employees clear parameters around such activities as: divulging confidential information, posting inappropriate content and personal blogging while on the job. Copyright guidelines that explain the proper way to post third-party content, such as photos and written work from other blogs and Web sites, can help to reduce a company’s liability risk as well.

“What successful employee blogging boils down to is common sense,” said Christopher Hannegan, senior vice president and director of Edelman’s Employee Engagement Practice. “It’s common sense on behalf of the employee who’s blogging and on behalf of the company that’s trying to get their arms around it. Unfortunately, everybody has a different version of what common sense is, and that’s why guidelines are helpful.”

Blogging policies and guidelines are becoming more important as blogs and their readership continue to grow. At last count, blog search engine Technorati reported that there are more than 19 million blogs with 70,000 new sites emerging every day. Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that 25 percent of Internet users say they now read blogs. Even the media is tuning in more frequently to blog content. A study by the international marketing communications firm Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University indicates that more than 50 percent of journalists use blogs regularly.

Once considered by some to be an outlet for company bashing by disgruntled employees, blogs have increasingly become an integral part of organizations’ communications strategies. Hannegan said he was surprised by the results of Edelman’s research on the reality of blog content. “I went into this expecting that employees who were blogging had an ax to grind and were doing so to get back at their companies. But we found that the tone of people blogging about their job or their boss or their company was positive versus negative by a four to one margin.”

He encouraged organizations to consider “how they can create a supportive environment for employee bloggers, create common expectations and figure out how to use employee bloggers to help their companies protect their reputations and build relationships with customers.” For example, bloggers who participated in a recent Technorati survey indicated that when seeking information about a company or its products, they prefer interacting with company employees who blog more than product managers or company executives.

Communicating through blogs requires a new way of thinking. “A company’s first reaction when something needs to be corrected in the public record is to send their CEO or their head of PR,” said Hannegan. “They would never in a million years dream of sending an employee who is very far down on the totem pole and is making $40,000 a year, yet that’s exactly the person who has the most credibility with bloggers.”

Paul Beaulieu, IBM senior Internet strategy consultant for the Boston Innovation Center and an employee blogger, said it won’t be long before corporate blogging policies are commonplace. IBM’s policy and guidelines actually were written by bloggers.

Some of IBM’s guidelines instruct employees to:

• Identify themselves and indicate their role at IBM when blogging about IBM or matters related to the company.
• Include a disclaimer when publishing a blog or posting to one to clarify that the opinions they state are their own and not necessarily those of IBM.
• Respect copyright
• Protect proprietary information

In addition to creating guidelines for employees, Beaulieu suggests that companies that host blogs follow two important rules: feature writers who are open, honest and personable, and dedicate adequate resources to ensure the blog is updated regularly.

“It’s like anything else in life. I’m not going to build a relationship with someone who ignores me,” said Beaulieu. “If you’re to do this right, you have to have people who listen, respond, pay attention and look at feedback. That’s important. Otherwise, it doesn’t add any value. It’s almost worse than not doing it at all.”

Additional information on corporate blogging:

• Blogs Will Change Your Business(BusinessWeek Online)
• Birth of the Business Blog (Line 56 E-Business Executive Daily)
• Why there’s No Escaping the Blog (Fortune.com)

Share This

The Library of Congress has assembled 19 copyright experts to recommend possible updates to Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. The Section 108 Study Group’s mission is to assess whether the 1976 law’s limitations on the use, distribution and preservation of copyrighted content in libraries and archives should be rewritten to accommodate today’s digital technologies.

“We are extremely hopeful that we can reach some consensus and, if not, come close so that we can try to modernize section 108 to match what libraries are doing in the digital age and, at the same time, respect the rights of rightsholders,” said Lolly Gasaway, director of the law library and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, and also co-chair of the study group.

Section 108 contains a lengthy set of narrow circumstances in which libraries and archives may reproduce, distribute and otherwise use copyrighted content without the express authorization of the rightsholder. Among the circumstances addressed by Section 108 are: copying by and for library patrons, interlibrary loans, and the preservation of older or damaged material. Gasaway reported some of the more controversial topics the group plans to take up include digital preservation and the use of copyrighted content in electronic reserves.

The Section 108 Study Group is chaired by Gasaway and Richard Rudick, former senior vice president and general counsel of John Wiley and Sons and current member of Copyright Clearance Center’s Board of Directors.

The group is expected to deliver their recommendations to the Library of Congress by mid-2006. Click here for more information.

Share This

When it comes to distributing information, electronic reserves (e-reserves) can either be a librarian’s best friend or risky business. Copyright expert Laura (Lolly) Gasaway, director of the law library and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, took some time recently to talk with Copyright Clearance Center representatives about e-reserves and to offer her insight on the best ways to use this valuable technology lawfully.

Below are excerpts from that interview.

Q: How important are e-reserves to colleges and universities?
A: They’re extremely important. I think they are actually going to become more important over time because, increasingly, educators are using information through digital means. More information is available in digital formats, and faculty and students want everything electronically.

Q: What types of content are posted on e-reserve systems?
A: The most common materials are journal articles, book chapter and sometimes sample test questions and answers. Mostly they are the typical things that were on print reserve in the past.

Q: What copyright-related questions are academic librarians raising the most?
A: The most common questions asked are: whether they have to follow the ALA Model Policy on Reserves or the newer ALA e-reserve statement, and whether activities such as repeatedly putting copyrighted material on e-reserve are considered fair use.

Q: Can you talk more about the issue of repeated use?
A: The American Library Association’s 1982 Model Policy says you can use copyrighted content one semester without permission and, after that, if you want to continue to use it, seek permission and pay royalties if the copyright holder asks for royalties.

Q: There are many publishers who believe permission is required for every use of copyrighted material. What do you tell librarians?
A: What is good about the 1982 ALA guidelines is that they strike a balance. They say: one time free and, after that, seek permission and pay. There are some libraries whose staff members have decided that if it’s fair use the first time, it’s fair use repeatedly. Yet, there’s nothing in the Copyright Act that really leads to that conclusion.

Q: Librarians have mentioned that some professors are taking copyrighted content they used to include in coursepacks and are posting it on e-reserve, thinking they do not need copyright permission. What do you think of that?
A: I think that’s just wrong. I’ve heard that a lot. It’s the same as professors who think that if they can’t put specific content in a coursepack, then they’ll just put it on the Web. I always say that what they’ve just done is create an electronic coursepack.

Q: Another e-reserve question that comes up fairly frequently involves the timing of exactly when a content user must obtain copyright permission. In your opinion, are content users required to get permission prior to posting copyrighted material on e-reserve?
A: The timing issue is critical and is one of the reasons for the 1982 Model Policy. We literally get faculty who will come in today and say “I need this for Wednesday.” There is no chance to get permission. But if it’s never been used before, then I don’t even think you need permission that first time under the Model Policy. It permits one term’s use for that faculty member without permission.

Q: If a school subscribes to a print publication, are its librarians and staff authorized to scan an article or excerpt from that publication and then post that content on e-reserve?
A: One semester, and after that they need permission.

Q: What do you suggest for those who subscribe to electronic publications and want to post that content on an e-reserve system?
A: Read the license agreement for that title. It more than likely permits a link to that resource in the e-reserves system and may even permit reproducing a copy and uploading the copy of that article into an e-reserves system.

Q: How important is it for academic institutions to address e-reserves in their copyright compliance guidelines?
A: It’s becoming a major issue, so I think it’s really important. When I work with colleges on their policies, that’s one of the things I suggest they include.

Q: What specific issues relating to e-reserves do you recommend academic institutions touch upon in their copyright policies?
A: First of all, include information about one-time use of information: one semester’s use without seeking permission. If used another semester, seek permission. Second, password-protect copyrighted items so that content posted for a specific class is only accessible by students enrolled in that class. Third, whenever possible, link to resources that the college is licensed to use.

Q: Do most colleges and universities include information on e-reserves in their campus copyright policies?
A: Some do, but more of them include it in a library policy of some type. It really does not matter where the policy statement appears, but it is likely to be more widely available to the campus community if it is in a campus copyright policy as opposed to a library copyright policy.

Share This