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University
of California Standing Committee on Copyright
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1. Preliminaries MEETING OBJECTIVES 1. Review
and discuss a prototype Web site for copyright information, and consider
next steps. 2. Continuous
Universitywide Education on Copyright Background:
Lessick introduced
the Web site and said that it was intended to be a comprehensive, authoritative,
and educational vehicle for disseminating copyright information. The site
was developed from questions from the faculty grantees in the University's
Teaching, Learning and technology Center (TLtC) competitive grants program
about licensing and registering copyrights, collaborative agreements,
how to tell if works are in the public domain, rights clearance, fair
use, and UC's property interests. Discussion centered on three areas:
Design and content, relationship to campus sites, and organizational support
for development and maintenance of the site. Design and Content. Some members felt that faculty are more interested in seeking answers to their questions than in looking up UC policies, and recommended that informational and Q&A sections should have primacy in the design. Others felt that the current design is a viable approach to showcase policies and enhance with added information. Borgman noted that faculty often want sample license agreements to use with publishers. The Committee had a positive response to the Quick Guides, and Lessick said campus feedback on the Quick Guides has been good. Borgman recommended links back from Quick Guides to the policies. Matkin recommended separating content from the interface, and allowing for interfaces that were adaptable to various constituencies. A propos Matkin's remarks, Lessick demonstrated the TLtC FAQs. Kurtz noted that the issues raised in these FAQs are complicated and fact-based, and MacDonald suggested prefacing most statements with "generally speaking." Zelmanowitz suggested harvesting campus concerns and approaches in order to modify the central content. Matkin suggested monitoring use of the site's components to see what's most used, and concentrate effort there. Hafner wondered whether a content management system might be useful to help maintain the site's content. Campus sites. Butter said she would be willing to have the UCSF Libraries site point to the UC site in lieu of creating her own content. There followed some discussion about campus copyright information sites, and what impact this site might have on them. According to MacDonald, campuses are supposed to adopt their own policies/procedures/ implementations, so long as they're not contradictory to UC policy. Hafner noted that linking back to campus sites, as the prototype Universitywide site proposes to do, might imply a duty to monitor alignment between campus and Universitywide interpretations. Acanfora suggested that campuses should be consulted on what links back to them were appropriate, and that the appropriate contact would be a vice-chancellor or equivalent. Organizational support. Zelmanowitz asked what the mechanism should be for developing and maintaining the site. Who should own it, and where should it live within UCOP? There was general consensus that the site needs to be owned by an administrative unit at UCOP. Zelmanowitz noted that the questions about organizational responsibility raised in item 4.c. of the "Issues for Discussion" clearly belong to UCOP. Regardless of where the site resides, policy oversight would belong to the SCC. Continuing issues for discussion include: how to maintain the site (keep current, update, manage), where the site will live and who is responsible; and where the locus of responsibility for copyright policy and interpretation within UCOP should lie. Zelmanowitz
summarized the consensus of the group: b. Faculty
seminars on scholarly communication Background: FAQs on scholarly communication Lawrence provided some information on proposed regional faculty seminars and the purpose of the FAQ, and pointed out the statement of the University Committee on Academic Personnel on the acceptability of digital publications for tenure and promotion decisions. Zelmanowitz noted that departments also need to take a step in order to ensure proper weighting of electronic publications in assessment. Borgman suggested that the FAQ needs to be accompanied by a paper that characterizes and sets out the currently unstated assumptions about the existing system of scholarly publishing. The SPARC Web site and the Tempe Principles provide some background and definitions (http://www.arl.org/scomm/tempe.html). 3. Universitywide
Copyright Policies Background:
Lawrence provided background on the drafts. Matkin noted that the purpose of the policy was to protect the classroom environment for both UC and the instructor, as well as to manage UC liability. Traugott suggested that there are overlaps between notes and recordings (the two parts of the policy as drafted) and questioned the need for both paragraphs. He also suggested applying some "test cases," such as services to disabled students, to examine the robustness of the policy. The consensus of the Committee was that the policy needs a statement of purpose to the effect that the policy is intended to protect faculty and the administration, ensure that published course notes are accurate and protect intellectual property. MacDonald noted that the policy prohibits distributing notes/recordings, not the notes/recordings themselves, and pointed out the distinction between the right to record and the right to distribute recordings. Staff will prepare a revised draft for consideration at the next Committee meeting. Lunch: File sharing: policies, procedures and issues Background:
Material distributed by Hafner: copies of Web sites, information from
campuses on file sharing by students Hafner introduced the topic of networked file sharing and described some of the strategies used by UCOP and the campuses to manage network bandwidth and discourage copyright infringement. In response to a question about the incidence of student discipline actions for copyright infringement, Hafner stated that UCOP does not monitor the disciplinary actions of the campuses. During discussion, Borgman raised the issue of "open proxy servers," proxy servers that fail to properly authenticate users and therefore allow unauthorized entities to gain access to licensed content. MacDonald provided an update on the Verizon decision. In response to a request to Verizon under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to disclose the name of an allegedly infringing subscriber, the company's defense was that the infringing material didn't reside on their equipment, they were just the conduit; the district court did not find that defense compelling. In a discussion
of the academic issues of file sharing Borgman identified three concerns: Borgman suggested
that campuses can do four things to protect privacy and academic freedom
while complying with the law: Lunch: S. 487 Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act - implementation issues Discussion was deferred to a future meeting owing to the press of time. 3b. Policy on Ownership of Course Materials, results of formal review Background:
Lawrence
reported that, while a range of concerns and suggestions about the most
recent version of the draft policy were raised during formal review (May-November
2002), the most frequently mentioned issues are the scope of included
parties (e.g. lecturers), the definition of "Exceptional University
Resources and the campus Course Materials Policy Committees, and the term
"syllabus." The Committee noted that the 1992 Policy on Copyright Ownership was primarily focused on the products of research, so the definition of Designated Academic Appointees was crafted to include those with a primary responsibility to produce research. By analogy, this policy should include all those with a primary responsibility to instruct. In principle, this concept extends to Unit 18 Lecturers and Graduate Student Instructors when they have independent teaching responsibility, but the Committee recognizes the labor relations issues involved in this broad definition and believes that the definition should at minimum be expanded to include all Senate members. The Committee
believes that the concept of Exceptional University Resources (EUR) is
critically important but not amenable to unequivocal definition in a written
University policy. The committee resolved to retain exceptional University
resources as a concept, but articulate the default position that the responsibility
to define when resources are "exceptional" and require a copyright
ownership agreement rests with the managers of the resources. It would
be helpful if copies of such agreements were sent to SCC. Some Committee
members noted that this approach was not likely to satisfy all concerns
about the use of EUR in development of course materials, especially among
administration, and advocated that the policy continue to provide some
post hoc mechanism for making EUR determinations. The Committee recommended that the word "syllabus" should be replaced with a new term of art that precisely describes the material in question and avoids confusion with this widely and differentially understood term. It would be desirable to retain a provision to allow the originator to remove his/her name from this work. Some Committee members suggested that the sections on Purpose and Scope be expanded to include some of the material prepared for the Committee's background report on this Policy. Staff will
revise the draft on the basis of this discussion. |