Starting A Clearance Center
Getting permission to reproduce copyrighted materials is essential. Find out how you can start a copyright clearance service at your in-plant.
So you want to create an in-plant copyright clearance service? Where should you begin?
As with building anything new, start by looking at the successes of others. Talk to in-plant managers who are running copyright clearance offices. Find out how they did it.
Some questions to keep in mind before expending energy and resources on benchmarking are:
• Is there a need for providing an in-plant copyright clearance service?
• Does your organization support it?
• How busy would the staff be?
• Do you currently have someone who can step into that role or will you need to do a search?
If using others' materials is not something that your organization does, you don't need to invest time in the benchmarking process. But even if you do not need a copyright clearance office, you may want to teach someone in the organization how to recognize copyrighted materials, or have legal counsel available who understand intellectual property rights for any questionable materials.
Some other considerations:
• Is there another organization that you can successfully outsource permissions processing to?
• Is the company reputable?
• Have they ever been involved in a lawsuit over copyright infringement?
• Do they have a good set of procedures for working with customers at a distance?
• Who are their customers, and are they similar to your organization?
For organizations that need only occasional permission to copy or print materials created or published by someone else, outsourcing may be a viable option.
Once you have decided to create an office, some questions to ask during your benchmarking process are:
• How comparable in size to your organization is the organization you are looking at?
• What is the volume of permissions it processes in a month or a year?
• How many people work in the office?
This isn't to say that a smaller or larger organization's information won't be beneficial because it may be, but scale really is important especially if your resources, human and otherwise, are much different than their resources. Corporations may have more people doing a particular job than a university, for instance, or vice versa.
Here are some other considerations:
How long has the organization been in the permissions business?
It will be beneficial to call the old pros, as well as some newbies in the business. The reasons to call the old pros are obvious, but calling some newer people may help alleviate the stress of feeling alone in such a big task, plus they may be more likely to use newer technologies and resources than more established offices.
For universities, is the service mandated by policy or is it voluntary?
This may seem like a strange question, but it does affect the way some offices are managed. Mandated offices don't necessarily need to market themselves as a service, although they may do so, because their customers don't have a choice. These offices are more likely to be supported by funding than voluntary compliance offices. Operating as a business with expenses and competition, voluntary offices must keep costs low, efficiency high and service at the forefront to secure a solid customer base.
What technologies are others using?
By examining the technology that others are using, you will be able to get ideas and save valuable time searching and trying them out. Someone may be using a database to help automate reusing the same materials time and again. Ask if they can give you the information on how to review it to possibly purchase it in the future.
Do they have standard operating procedures and standards for performance?
Reviewing the procedures of others will tell you if those procedures will work in your environment. Performance standards will help you gauge your employees' efficiency. If the process is too slow, something must be wrong. If it is fast, you should share your secret with the rest of us.
Can they send copies of their forms and marketing pieces? Do they have a Web site you can look at?
Examining forms from other offices will save you from having to create them from scratch. If providing information over the Web to potential customers is part of your strategic plan, ask them if they would mind providing the coding for the form. Unless the coding is proprietary, there should not be a problem.
What resources do others use for researching rights holders, publishers and authors?
You can cut down the amount of time spent researching by utilizing resources like Books in Print, Ulrich's Periodicals, the Internet, the International ISBN Directory, databases like Contemporary Authors and Associations Unlimited, your public library or school library's catalog, plus many more.
How do they make money or recover costs?
A per page fee multiplied by the number of copies works well for course packets, but it does not transfer well to electronic media. Flat fees and hourly fees may work better for some offices than others. Central funding may be an option, and will eliminate some overhead.
What type of staff works best? Many copyright clearance offices utilize various types of staff including full-time salaried, part-time hourly, temporary agency staff and students. Ask for a copy of job descriptions and salaries.
After the conversation is over, think about the following questions:
• Can you use what you learned to set up and manage the office in your environment?
• Is it worth it?
• Can it make money—or at least not lose money—for your organization?
• Would hiring an outside vendor be a better choice to meet your organization's needs?
Communicate Your Criteria
If you have decided to create an office, you will need to clearly communicate to everyone your organization's criteria for requesting copyright clearance or using materials under the fair use guidelines. Consulting an intellectual property attorney during the process is a good idea. The U.S. Copyright Law is long and can easily be misinterpreted. It is easy to be too restrictive, as well as too loose, when interpreting the fair use guidelines.
There are several good resources on the Internet to learn about copyright law and fair use.
Here are a few of them:
• Copyright Clearance Center: www.copyright.com
• Cornell University's site: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17
• Stanford University's site: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/primary/index.html#caselaw
• University of Texas System's site: www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm
• Penn State University's site: www.obs.psu.edu/dObs/dDocSrv/dCpyClr/frames.htm
Once the policy is in place and understood, it is time to hire someone or train an existing employee. The qualities to look for include some college or publishing experience, strong customer service and organizational skills, ability to handle multiple tasks concurrently under stress and a "never-give-up" attitude.
Buy The Right Tools
Purchase the resources you need to provide the service:
• A personal computer with Internet access and a CD-ROM drive. Software packages will determine the processor speed and memory requirements. We use a custom FileMaker Pro 4.0 database. If you will be running a database, you will need a much more robust system.
• Rights holder research tools. Some offices prefer hard copy of books like Ulrichs International Periodicals Directory, Books-In-Print, Books Out of Print and Publishers' International ISBN Directory. There are CD-ROMs available and even Web access for some. R.R. Bowker (www.bowker.com) will be able to provide pricing information and availability. For universities, your library may have online access to some of them already. Generally, purchasing new research tools every other year is sufficient.
• Accounts with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) and Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP). The CCC is a non-profit clearinghouse that processes permissions on your behalf. About 70 percent of our permissions are processed via the CCC. Its Web address is www.copyright.com. HBSP has a program called Academic Key Accounts. If your university's volume of copying HBSP's cases and articles is high enough, you may qualify. The benefit is a reduction in the permission fee. HBSP's Web address is www.hbsp.harvard.edu.
• Join the copyright clearance office community. Attending conferences, joining electronic mail services and helping other offices when asked are ways to share ideas and learn new ways to be more efficient. Lists like HardCopy and Copyright-edu are excellent ways to "talk" to large groups. Both lists are for university people. To subscribe to HardCopy, e-mail Ray Chambers at: racham01@athena.louisville.edu&012;.For Copyright-edu, sign up at this site: www.onelist.com/group/copyright-edu.
This article should give you a foundation on which to build a successful office or help determine if it is not necessary. By working together and sharing information, we can all benefit from our successes and avoid making the same mistakes.
by April Sheninger
April Sheninger has been with the Copyright Clearance Office at Penn State University since 1993. Her career began as a temp in a campus copy center. She was asked to help out in the copyright clearance office, where she quickly took on the leadership role. Promoted to senior coordinator in 1998, she continues to manage that area within Document Services. She has a Bachelor of Science in Counseling from Penn State and will be completing her Master of Education in Instructional Systems in August 2000. You can contact her at: azs2@obs.psu.edu&012;.