[pd-discuss] Communia condems the privatisation of the public domain by the BnF

Tue Jan 22 16:59:52 UTC 2013

On LOC: you are right, the draft digitization principles at https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=d8c39016d970dc675c013713156371d9 have this to say about embargo periods:

When the digitization of the materials does not represent an institutional priority, the Library will consider a short term (generally less than three years) of restrictions upon the Library's right to distribute digital copies externally, such as an embargo on online posting of the material on the Library's external Web sites. Such embargo periods are generally disfavored. Following any embargo period, the Library will have full rights to the digitized materials and the core metadata, including the right to make those copies freely available online, subject to copyright permissions for any underlying content.

On Google: The revised agreements developed in anticipation of the acceptance of the Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) removed most of Google's restrictions on the use of the digital files it created.  See, for example, Section 18(c), "Lifting of Restrictions," on p. 8 of the amended Michigan agreement at http://www.lib.umich.edu/files/services/mdp/Amendment-to-Cooperative-Agreement.pdf, which removed most restrictions after 20 years. The one big restriction that remained is that Michigan could not give the digital files to a search engine similar to Google.  (Google perhaps understandably was not interested in giving its investment of $300 million to a competitor.) Virginia negotiated a slightly better deal: all restrictions on PD content were to terminate after 15 years.  See 4.10(d), p. 8, in http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/press/uvagoogle/final_amended_cooperative_agreement_fully_executed.pdf.

In both cases, though, these changes to the original agreement were predicated on the acceptance of the ASA.  When critics were able to kill the ASA, the amended agreements became void and the schools returned to the original agreements that gave Google ownership of the digital files it created into perpetuity.

I suppose the only good news is that Google's restrictions on the public domain files are fairly limited: it "requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially" (as per the HathiTrust access and use page at http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use).  And without Google's investment, we wouldn't have 3.2 million public domain titles available through the HathiTrust (and more through Google Book Search itself).

Peter

From: pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Javier Ruiz
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 5:06 AM
To: Public Domain discuss list
Subject: Re: [pd-discuss] Communia condems the privatisation of the public domain by the BnF

15 years was Google Books standard agreement but they are making them shorter in Europe.

In the UK the standard framework contract from the national archives is 10 years.

LOC in the USA was consulting on 3 years

My view is that the duration should be set in the project business plan with either transparent cost recovery or a clear priority for shorter term contract bids.

Costs should be coming down and you are killing off the potential advantage of competitive tendering, if you believe in such things.
On Jan 21, 2013 7:31 PM, "Paul Keller" <pk at kl.nl<mailto:pk at kl.nl>> wrote:
current norm seems to be 15 years, but generally with less stringent exclusivity provisions. There is an ongoing discussion in brussels as part of the PSI directive to put a maximum term on these kind of agreements.... /paul

--
Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl<http://www.kennisland.nl> | t +31205756720<tel:%2B31205756720> | m +31641374687<tel:%2B31641374687>

On Monday, January 21, 2013 at 18:44 , Tom Morris wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Peter B. Hirtle <pbh6 at cornell.edu<mailto:pbh6 at cornell.edu> (mailto:pbh6 at cornell.edu<mailto:pbh6 at cornell.edu>)> wrote:
>
> > I assume you know about some US statements on the issue from ARL:
> >
> > Principles to Guide Vendor/Publisher Relations in Large-Scale Digitization
> > Projects of Special Collections Materials, June 2010
> > (http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/principles_large_scale_digitization.pdf)
>
>
>
> Those all seem like pretty common sense guidelines, but some of them
> are open-ended such as "Restrictions on external access to copies of
> works digitized from a library's holding should be of limited
> duration."
>
> Do you have a sense what the current norm is for these types of
> agreements? Is 10 years longer, shorter, or about average?
>
> Tom
>
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