Clearing the Way: Copyright Clearance in UK Libraries

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2002), "Clearing the Way: Copyright Clearance in UK Libraries", Library Review, Vol. 51 No. 8, pp. 431-432. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2002.51.8.431.9

This is a timely and readable piece of research and I was glad to see it in general circulation. Elizabeth Gadd’s work with LISU on copyright issues, is (and should be) well‐known to practitioners, and is part of a growingly sophisticated and comprehensive framework of IPR management and information dissemination in its field. This can be seen readily and above all in the JISC Legal Information Service Web site (at: www.jisc.ac.uk/legal/), focused on IPR, data protection, and other legal issues, and providing discussion groups and an e‐newsletter. There are also Weedon’s influential policy approaches to copyright document from the Centre for Educational Systems (2000), the ACORN and HERON (and other eLib) projects, the work of the Copyright in Higher Education Working Group (reporting at: www.law.warwick.ac.uk/ncle/copyright/ ), a wealth of information from the Copyright Licensing Agency (notably its recent legal battle with UUK over copyright and course‐packs), the interpretation of the NESLI licence, and the general debate about copyright and libraries in ever‐new editions of works by Cornish, Norman, and others. The debate weaves its way in and out of digital library development, and stretches beyond libraries into the whole HE organisation. It is not a coincidence that, in July 2001, LISU published The Cost of Copyright Compliance in Further Education and Higher Education Institutions, by Sally Maynard and J. Eric Davies.

The aim of Gadd’s research here was to raise awareness about copyright clearance and evaluate how clearing and licensing were progressing in the sector (not just UK libraries but organisations of which they are a part, many of them in higher education). Not all clearance staff are in libraries (45 per cent of Gadd’s respondents said clearance took place elsewhere) and some organisations have dedicated clearance units. Of Gadd’s sample, 89 per cent of respondents were in HE, and most people involved directly in it spent between one and ten hours a week on it. There were 32 dedicated copyright personnel, as well as many library assistants and subject librarians. Rights focused on short loan in hard and electronic formats, distance‐learning materials and CAL packages, digitisation projects, current awareness, and staff publications. Coursepacks took up the greatest time (55 per cent of respondents did this). The experience of these employees with CLARCS (the CLA service), HERON (the electronic materials clearing house), and the BLDSC, was also surveyed, and picked up on what they were like, the clearance process, liaising with rights holders, clearance fees and charging mechanisms (most were one‐off fees and fees based on pages/items copied; most were paid by departments, especially coursepacks, or by the library, or by both), and many respondents thought that clearance was getting harder. To back up the questionnaire evidence, Gadd undertook five interviews with clearance services in HEIs (in England and Wales). Often the introduction of the CLA licence and CLARCS motivated institutions to designate specific staff for clearance. Details of the job descriptions for copyright clearance officers are provided, and procedures (for example using CLARCS database, COPAC, Dawsons, etc) described.

The processes here are just part of the whole story. Views about the way we are now come through strongly in the report, and are summarized in a long discussion at the end. Copyright clearance is regarded as a real burden to UK HE, in time and complexity and cost. Most HEIs deal with over 400 clearances a year and two staff were allocated to that. The case for a mandatory and central clearing house, often raised, is raised here: Norway and Japan have one, so why not the UK? Licensing, often and superficially attributed with being the solution, raises problems of its own, seen to be increasingly restrictive, less value‐for‐money, and leading to more administration.

The current voluntary schemes (CLARCS, HERON, and BLDSC) are reviewed objectively (HERON comes nearest to such a clearing house but does not and cannot cover everything in a world where overlap is limited, as well as being seen to be costly). Publisher concern about CLARCS getting too successful may underlie some of the problems clearing rights with rights holders. Metadata arrangements (such as the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) is one road ahead. Challenges remain for libraries and organisations, and there are instances where lines of demarcation are not clear, making for inefficiencies.

Clearance processes present legal challenges in their own right, under contract and tort. Gadd recommends centralisation of clearance, making the process easier and fairer, ongoing attention by organisations to putting a management structure in place and aiming at best practice, and greater direct involvement of rights holders in permissions and secondary rights. This snapshots the time of the research and represents a longer time‐line for the issues. Readers will welcome it, accepting that it is mainly about UK HEIs, and staff involved in policy, or seeking to influence it, may find it adds to the evidence in favour of getting institutional procedures right, even if the larger realpolitik of IPR and rights ownership and use will take longer to resolve.