[pd-discuss] Hathitrust locks public domain books; amasses scans from others, and gives full access only to partners members

Thu Jun 23 12:55:32 UTC 2011

I think the issue here is not so much copyright but the mission of
organisations that have some public interest and the interaction with
business models. Just because something is in the public domain nobody has
an obligation to spend money in bandwidth and storage to publish it, but if
you are a public institution then you have to consider open access when you
do.

The case of the Hathi trust brings the question of whether private
institutions that take on a public interest mission should be bounded by
some of the constrains that we would expect on public bodies. The
Anglo-Saxon world is clearly moving towards a situation where support for
public culture is increasingly not seen as a core duty of the State, but
that of philanthropists and corporate sponsors. Public institutions are
expected to generate private income, and private institutions take on public
missions.

>From what people are reporting in this list, Peter seems right to point to
the British Library as a much more problematic case than the Hathi Trust,
with PPP deals that lock away digital works behind paywalls. Also, I would
agree with Dingodog that saying that you can go and scan again is not
viable. That is the fig leaf of many digitisation deals, but when you look
at the study of costs involved in digitising all of EU culture by Nick Poole
at Collections Trust, it becomes clear that EVERY (;-) digitisation effort
has to be assumed to be a one off with a long term strategy for open access.

Here it may be useful to start with some norms  -- or an "open definition"
for digital GLAMs -- as Jonathan proposed, although for us as an advocacy
organisation these bottom up norms should be complemented with something we
can propose as policy (top down). The more these norms are used in practice
the easier it is to push for the policy with examples.

Having a policy besides a best practice manual or a definition is necessary
for larger institutions. We have been told very clearly by people at the
British Library that they do not have a coherent policy direction for
digital other than in preservation. In the absence of policy via governors,
managers just see digital as potential income, and favour dodgy PPP deals at
least as avoiding upfront expenses, even if it means restrictions.

Many business models for digitisation (freemium, temporary
paywalls, sponsorship, etc.) could be acceptable but they need to be shaped
by clear policy obligations. These can range from avoiding sponsorship by
companies with bad human rights records to ensure that exclusive deals will
be based on cost recovery.

Making this happen, I am afraid, is going to take more than encouragement. I
think the video is an excellent idea, but a multiple approach of positive
encouragement, reputation embarrassment and outright political work is what
works for change everywhere.

BL just announced a deal with Google for 250,000 books, which although
better than Cengage or Brightsolid in terms of access is still problematic
in that we don't know when the restrictions on the copies given to BL
expire. We are chasing BL on this right now, but they say that Google signs
generic deals and refuses to negotiate.

We would be very interested to know more about the 15 years expiration of
Google deals in US and whether this applies to UK. I have checked the
amendments to the University of Michigan/ Google contract but didn't spot
that. A recent EU report recommends a maximum of 7 years for PPP deals, but
in UK most deals are 10 years.

Javier

On 21 June 2011 11:23, Michael S. Hart <hart at pglaf.org> wrote:

>
> I'm not sure you CAN LEGALLY claim copyright in public domain matter,
> perhaps depending on what country you are in AND value added. . . .
>
>
> Michael S. Hart
> Founder
> Project Gutenberg,
> Inventor of eBooks
> Co-Founder
> The World eBook Fair
>
> 6.55 MILLION FREE eBOOKS!
> July 4 through August 4 @
> http://worldebookfair.org
> [Not Subtracting Duplicates]
>
>
>
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Matthew Mundell wrote:
>
> > This does, however, highlight the beauty of the public domain: anyone can
> > do anything with the work.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/pd-discuss
> >
>
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