rolanni | Again with the “orphan” works

So, back in middish-September, Teh Intertubes (and we here in this blog entry, too) had a talk about a buncha university libraries calling themselves HathiTrust, which had just sort of decided that copyright was really inconvenient, and digitized a hundred or so books that, in the sole opinion of HathiTrust were “orphaned.” The Authors Guild pretty quickly filed a lawsuit against the trust, and took a lot of heat out there on Teh Intertubes (we here were polite, though we did not always agree) for Being Mean to libraries. Words like “anti-intellectual,” and “anti-education” were tossed about, with a fair number of folk sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling laLAlaLALA at the top of their typing speed.

So, the libraries maintained that they had used “due diligence” in searching for the rights holders of the books they coveted, and the Authors Guild said, If you used due diligence how could you have missed finding this guy who we found in a four-second Google Search, and he’s plenty mad at you for digitizing his book without asking — or paying?

Well…it turns out that the libraries, being, yanno academic libraries, Just Naturally Assumed that the rights holders would be. . .

drum roll, please

. . .the publishers.

*bangs head on desk*

Read all about it, and more.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

Oh, seriously now. That is some amazingly ignorant nonsense, even for academics.

As a former librarian I am howling with embarassment. Smacks of the interesting acquisitions policies of many museums... don't ask, don't tell.

Nanette

Just when I think I can no longer be surprised by the stupidity of humanity....
Lauretta @ConstellationBooks

Err ... I worked in an acadmeic library as a college student, and no one there was that ... dense ...

I hate to say it, but I can almost guess that there was a committee involved. And there is something magical about a committee. Given 10 people, any of whom is sharp, the dynamics of the committee can all too easily result in group idiocy. Not always, and there are plenty of teams that do good work, but... I think one of the prerequisites for group idiocy is that everyone assumes that someone else is going to check into that. That guy "somebody" just plain doesn't do good work.

Yeah. Head to desk, palm to face, and all those expressions of "I can't believe it."

It does strike me as something put together by the various Administrations without input from anybody with...Real World Experience.

One anonymous commenter sarcastically stated, more than once, that the AG just had to make sure dead authors got their rights, because, after all, they needed the incentive to write more books. This person just doesn't get the underlying principle of copyright. Copyright is people, but intellectual property is PROPERTY. It is real, has value, can be transferred, sold, and willed. And yes, copyright does give those authors incentive to write more--before they died, so that everyone should understand that their work, while intellectual, is still property. Ok, I'm off my soapbox now.

First, I understand that academic publishing is often different than commercial publishing, in that the institution often holds onto the intellectual property rights of dissertations and other academic publications. That makes sense to the institution which has often provided research facilities and funding to the author of the academic work. I also know that there are from time to time disputes about this when a graduate, for example, wishes to use the product of their intellectual endeavors once they have left the institution. Makes sense.

Now, taking all of that in to consideration, ARE THEY NUTS! I looked at the list of member institutions. Most of these fine universities have law schools. Indeed, some of the finest law schools in this country are at member institutions: University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Harvard University, etc. It takes willfulness to fail to properly investigate intellectual property law considering the excellent and readily available sources in house. They are not stupid. They are counting on the theory that failure to understand the law will protect them.

The appropriate answer is to set up a rigorous system of due diligence that includes making an honest attempt to locate authors (not just putting names on a list online) and then making that system openly available for criticism by concerned parties. Hey, they make doctoral candidates defend their work, right?

The HathiTrust begins to look to me like something that was put together by members of the various colleges' administrations, who didn't bother to ask anyone who was actually knowledgeable on their faculties to help. As has been pointed out, librarians as a class are not idiots, and even university librarians have to deal with trade books.

The letter from Scholarly Communications Officer (wow, is that a title or what?) Dr. Smith chastising Mr. Salamanca for protecting his copyright is just illustrative of everything that makes this argument so...surreal. Of course an author is going to protect their rights, and to scold Mr. Salamanca for choosing to revert his rights, as if it were somehow wrong for him to have done so...is, from my perspective beyond belief.

Also, the assertion that the ability of an author to revert his rights in the 50s was "unusual" is just...bizarre.

So, yeah, clearly, SCO Dr. Smith, at least, didn't talk to anybody who knew something about his topic.

...and conveniently ignoring the fact that at least one of those authors -- they guy the AG found in their Google search -- is still alive, and corked off, too.

At http://www.hathitrust.org/authors_guild_lawsuit_information, the HathiTrust purports to lay out all of the relevant information about the lawsuit.

All of the material there is told by their side. No statement of the substance of the suit, nor any other statement from the Authors' Guild, is included.

That pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Again with the “orphan” works

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