Acquiring Copyright Permission to Digitize and Provide Open Access to Books

Citation

Lee Eden, B. (2007), "Acquiring Copyright Permission to Digitize and Provide Open Access to Books", Collection Building, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 36-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604950710721593

This book discusses how to get open access rights to books whose rights are privately held; that is, books published since 1923. The author is principal librarian for special projects at Carnegie Mellon University, and this book describes three efforts by her institution to make books freely available on the internet for public use.

The Random Sample Feasibility Study was attempted between 1999 and 2001. The main goal was to determine how likely publishers would grant nonexclusive permission to digitize and provide web access to copyrighted books. The study was based on 209 publishers and 227 randomly‐selected titles. Overall, 20 per cent of the publishers could not be located. Half of the publishers responded, and 25 per cent of them granted permission to digitize and provide Web access to 25 per cent of the copyrighted books in the sample. Average cost for copyright permission was $200.

The Fine and Rare Book Study was done between 2001 and 2004. Rather than send one letter for each book to a publisher, like the previous study, project staff sent one letter with multiple titles to publishers, if possible. In addition e‐mail and telephone calls were attempted to those publishers that did not respond to the letters. The collection contains 284 copyrighted works owned by 104 copyright holders. Almost 65 per cent of the copyright holders responded, and half of them granted permission to digitize and provide web access to their books. Average cost for copyright permission was $78.

The Million Book Project Study, still in progress, is attempting to provide access to one million books by 2007. It is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Chinese and Indian governments. Of the million books, 100,000 were determined to still have copyright. Currently, with 61 per cent of the negotiations completed, the project has been able to gain permission to digitize and provide access to 25 per cent of the 100,000 copyrighted works. Average cost for copyright permission has been $.69 per title.

The study results of these three projects indicates that: it is difficult and expensive to locate copyright holders; obtaining copyright permission may be prohibitively expensive for large projects; obtaining permission to digitize targeted works is easier than for entire bodies of published works; likelihood of gaining permission varies among publishers; some publishers are easier to locate than others; publishers are unsure of their rights regarding most of their titles; and publishers define “out of print” differently than librarians.

This book provides excellent, well‐researched and documented evidence from three large digitization projects on time, effort, and cost related to obtaining copyright permission to digitize and provide web access to books.