Turning to Dust or Digital Copyright Permission Turning to Dust or Digital Denise Troll Covey Associate University Librarian, Carnegie Mellon Future of the Book Conference Cairns, Australia – April 2003

Perilous Facts Books are turning to dust on library shelves Even if digitized, books can disappear or go dark, & licenses & technologies can trump legal uses Stewardship of our heritage is endangered Equitable access is becoming a platitude Education & scholarship are in peril

The Copyright Absurdity 95% of books ever printed are still in copyright < 3% are still in print 92% of the world’s books are neither generating revenue for the copyright owner nor easily accessible to potential readers

Solution: Copyright Permission for Open Access Protecting private interest Promoting public good

Digital Free-to-Read Feasibility Study Statistically valid random sample Couldn’t locate publisher for over 10% books If located publisher, half didn’t respond If got response, fewer than half gave permission If got permission, fees or other restrictions applied Overall success rate 22% More likely not to locate the publisher or get a response with out-of-print books

Success of Copyright Permission Books Total items 337 1. Copyright protected 94% 2. Publishers contacted 88% 3. Publishers responded 51% Permission granted 43% Overall success rate 22% Articles 96 70% 45% 90% 28% Each row of percentages = percentage of previous row, e.g., 88% of the 94% Permission granted: Number NOT in parentheses is percentage of responses that granted permission Number IN parentheses is percentage of copyright protected items in the sample for which permission was granted Success per publisher type (responses) 45% scholarly associations 37% university presses 31% museums, art galleries 12% commercial publishers Success per print status Of those responding, equally like to get permission to digitize in-print or out-of-print books More likely not to locate the publisher or get a response with out-of-print books Carnegie Mellon 1999-2001 Wayne State 2000

Permission by Publisher Type Success Rate Scholarly associations 45% University presses 37% Museums & galleries 31% Commercial publishers 12%

Labor Cost to Digitize Books $25 - $150 per book in the United States Digitization, OCR, metadata capture, & initial storage Not hardware, software, or catalog links Contingent on characteristics of book & scanner Disbound book Bound book Rare book

Copyright Permission Costs Permission cost – Fee for permission itself Hundreds of dollars per book Transaction cost – Labor & related costs Hundreds of dollars per request Total Cost Millions Books netLibrary $85 40,000 Questia $127 Wayne State 1,000 Articles Permission $26,000 (51%) Transaction $24,500 (49%) TOTAL $50,500 Cliff Lynch extimates copyright permissions cost hundreds of times more than cost of digitization netLibrary, which spent somewhere on the order of $85 million to digitize 40,000 titles, and Questia, which spent half again as much to digitize roughly the same number of books Over $10K transaction cost to digitize 7000 slides – unknown permission cost or labor cost

Free-to-Read Million Book Project Digitize 1,000,000 books in 5 years NSF - $3.6 million for equipment & travel India - $1.5 million for labor (1000 people for 5 years) Led by Carnegie Mellon Libraries & Computer Science U.S. Partners – Internet Archives, OCLC, & libraries

Collection Development November 2001 (NSF) Collection of collections 200,000 indigenous Indian works 700,000 public domain works 100,000 copyrighted works – Books for College Libraries November 2003 Select more bibliographies Strategize logistics

Scanning Underway in India Labor cheaper than in U.S., but high paid in India Each scanner, 2 shifts a day = 4000 books a year 100 scanners – 400,000 books per year Currently 18 scanners = 72,000 books per year Each Minolta, two shifts daily, = 4000 books per year Total 100 scanners = 400,000 books per year

Copyright Negotiations Educate Find online, but use print Online access increases use Open access doesn’t decrease, & can increase sales Copyright absurdity Ask Non-exclusive permission to digitize & offer free-to-read Minimal system functionality Focus on out-of-print books Give Preservation-quality copies Metadata & OCR Motivate $$ Use in added-value, fee-based services $$ Print on demand for out-of-print titles $$ Buy button for in-print titles Increases use of older works

Initial Copyright Approach Do not pay permission cost Focus on out-of-print, in-copyright titles Books for College Libraries has 50,000 titles Begin with scholarly associations & university presses Transaction cost per title is prohibitive Identifying & inserting titles in letters Negotiating & tracking permission per title

Epiphany & New Approach Focus on publishers of quality books Treat bibliographies as approval plan of publishers Books for College Libraries has 5600 publishers Ask for permission to digitize All out-of-print, in-copyright titles All titles published prior to a date of their choosing All titles published # or more years ago List of titles they choose Follow-up with phone call or visit 

Results of New Approach Estimate transaction costs remain the same Shift $$ from clerical to administration But acquire more books for $$ spent National Academy Press – 99% increase 26 titles in Books for College Libraries Permission for 3046 titles Brookings Institution – 96% increase Rand McNally – 60% increase

“More Bang for the Buck” Initial Current Indigenous Indian Public Domain In Copyright

Million Book Collection Projections Success rate (# BCL publishers) # of books per publisher Million Book Collection 3% (168) 1500 252,000 5% (280) 420,000 20% (1,120) 1,680,000 We could need to negotiate with India for more labor

Current Status 100 letters sent 6% permission granted 5% permission denied 21% negotiations underway 52% no follow-up or response 5% copyright reverted to author 1% no electronic rights 4% incorrect address Hiring full-time staff & distributing negotiations National Academy Press – Rand McNally, Inc. – Brookings Institution Press O’Reilly & Associates – Harvard University Press – Indiana University Press

Copyright Workflow #1 India Carnegie Mellon

Copyright Workflow #2 India Carnegie Mellon

 Metadata Bibliographic - for delivery system MARC record or Dublin Core Administrative - for reporting system Bibliographic metadata Source library Return requested Copyright status – check renewal records Permission status – used by delivery system Copies sent to publishers, libraries, & mirror sites 

Funding Copyright Permission Foundation proposals not funded UC Merced – $35,000 pending IMLS – pending Cost share 51% of total project IMLS Copyright, collection development, & project management $234,700 $445,000 Acquisitions, shipping, & survey software $265,300 Outcomes assessment $78,000 TOTAL $500,000 $523,000

Copyright Assessments Number of copyrighted books in the Collection Success rate of permission requests Participating publisher Overall satisfaction Quality of the copies What they did or plan to do with the copies Impact on revenue & view of open access Use & impact on users –what they did with the books & why, what difference the books made, assessment of the quality of the Collection & the delivery system, and their estimation of the significance of the project.