Copyright and the University Community: Implementing a Comprehensive Copyright Policy Executive Summary Georgia Harper University of Texas System Office of General Counsel Full Text of Presentation: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/admin3.htm

IT'S TIME TO GET SERIOUS

I recently attended several sessions of the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU). These experiences were real eye-openers. Publishers by and large are very wary of electronic uses of their works and they have very narrow ideas about the scope of fair use. It is amazing that publishers and users are able to come to any agreement concerning the scope of fair use in the electronic environment and not at all surprising that their agreements describe a very narrow scope. What is surprising is the relative lack of awareness of what is fair use on campus. Most users really have no idea at all. The combination of fearful publishers and blasé users makes it unwise to ignore the possibility of a lawsuit: Publishers have had several recent successes in the courts and many universities fear that one of us will be their next target. Could we withstand an allegation of infringement?

Compliance strategies

Our first strategy for complying with copyright law must be educating our faculty, staff and students to be better consumers of copyrighted materials, more responsible in their use of others' works and careful in their exercise of statutory exemptions.

But we also must make it easier for faculty, staff and students to get permission to use others' works when statutory exemptions do not apply. We must establish quick, easy and reliable links with copyright clearance centers, negotiate blanket licenses where they would be advantageous and begin to acquire access in digital materials sufficient to obviate the need for additional permissions to use such licensed electronic information.

This is where you come in: we need your help to implement a comprehensive copyright policy that will facilitate copyright compliance System-wide.

• Compliance strategies should involve university action in four areas:

  • Providing guidance about copyright law to faculty, staff and students;

  • Making it easier to get permission to use others' works when necessary;

  • Reducing the need for permission to use others' works;

  • Taking a more active role in copyright management.

The University of Texas System is revising its Intellectual Property Policy to better address copyright ownership and management, use of others' works and support for scholarly electronic publishing. We'll need your help to get the job done.

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