Re: Student Dilemma

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Teresa Dulberg <tclare51[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> My daughter called me today with the following copyright problem she
> has encountered at the college she is attending in Southern California:
> Her Socialogy professor is requiring the students use a certain text
> book for the summer quarter course which is out of print. The college
> bookstore had only 5 copies which were promptly sold to the first ones
> getting to the bookstore, leaving the remaining students WITHOUT the
> required text. The professor then told THOSE students without the text
> (one being my daughter), to borrow a copy from a fellow student or take
> the ONE copy on reserve in the library at the college and have the book
> photocopied at a Kinkos, or use the copy machine at the school library.
> She instructed the students "not to tell anyone", but insisted that the
> "out of print" text is the ONLY text she is requiring, and the students
> who could not buy it, will have to copy it.
>
> I see serious problems here

This is more of an "authors' dilemma" rather than a student's dilemma - in many/most cases, the rights will have reverted to the author, who should be consulted for reprint/copying rights. In the UK, there is in addition a "typographical copyright" which remains with the publisher. This is usually assessed at 10% of the total fee. Thus, the author(s) would need to be contacted in the first instance, and there may or may not be a call to pay the publisher something as well.

This is to be read in conjunction with Mary Brandt Jensen's comments on Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:22:03:
>
> The first time I wanted to use an out of print book as a text in my
> copyright class, the publisher faxed permission and charged only
> about a 10% royalty based on the original price of the text. The total
> cost to students after Kinko's copied, charged for copying and collected
> the royalty for us was less than the original cost of the book.

While I'm glad the price was affordable to students, the money probably went to the wrong address - I would be pleasantly but extremely surprised if any of those revenues found their way back to the author, who in many cases is the only rightsholder involved.

CHRIS ZIELINSKI, Secretary General, ALCS 74 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1EF, United Kingdom Tel: (0044)-(0)171 255 2034 - Fax: (0044)-(0)171 323 0486 <chris.zielinski[_at_]alcs.co.uk> Received on Fri Jul 04 1997 - 14:25:39 GMT