Re: copyright under stress

On 6/14/2000, Fritz Dolak <fdolak[_at_]gw.bsu.edu> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jun 12, 2000, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd be interested in seeing concrete examples of situations in which
> > copyright causes denial of access.
>
> In my view and in my experiences here at Ball State, I can relate
> that dealing with permission for transmitting audio/visual materials
> for distance education [Section 110 (2) of Our Copyright Law]
> causes denial of access. How? By the copyright owner either
> totally denying our request for the transmission or placing such
> a high licensing fee for the transmission that we, as a public
> institution, cannot afford the cost. Effect: on-campus
> students get to view the audio/visual material in class; the
> off-campus students do not. That's denial of access in my
> view -- admittedly, a non-lawyerly view.
>
> One concrete example [a classic horror story that I reiterate
> whenever I can]. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum
> Development has the rights for 19 curriculum videos we wanted
> to use for a graduate course for in-the-field teachers. Total
> cost for transmitting these 19 videos: $27,271.00. Obviously
> for a course with 30 remote students, this cost was prohibitive
> and confiscatory...unless, of course, we wanted to raise class
> fees $900 per remote student ;-)
>
> Yeah, I know, you might say this is a licensing issue, but
> nonetheless, our 30 remote, off-campus students were denied
> access ...

There are going to be instances where people who want access can't afford it. It's an old story. Them whats got, get. But we have to be careful about anecdotal evidence. In the example cited by Mr. Dolak, the license boils down to around $48 per video (30 students each getting 19 videos). If that approximates the retail cost of those videos, it may be that the ASCD just has not developed a distance education pricing scheme, and whoever responded to the request from Ball State just did the math. I represent a video production company that retails documentary productions on business management to Fortune 500 companies at prices close to $300 per tape. But if a school came along and asked for rights to use the tapes in a distance education program, I am sure the client would be thrilled to negotiate an affordable price. The marginal cost of granting a transmission license is zero, so the producer has every incentive to get something rather than nothing, and would be particularly anxious to have the work viewed by teachers in a position to generate future sales by spreading the word. It may be that Ball State was persistent and ASCD was obstinate, but my guess is that if the right person at Ball State found the right person at ASCD, they could have reached an agreement. And if not, the producer who is probably getting a commission from ASCD, could likely have been enlisted to make it happen.

John Noble
<jnoble[_at_]dgsys.com> Received on Thu Jun 15 2000 - 10:55:11 GMT