If you are an author who retained the copyright in your book(s), then you are potentially a member of the settlement class in this law suit. Between January 5, 2009 and February 27, 2009, you might receive a notice from legal counsel in the case that explains your rights and options under the settlement agreement.

Please read the notice carefully since there are time sensitive issues specified in the document. The settlement agreement can be viewed here. For general information about the agreement, members of the Purdue University community may contact Donna L. Ferullo, Director, Purdue University Copyright Office. For legal advice, please consult with your own personal attorney. For information about the Google book project, you may contact James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, or Beth McNeil, Associate Dean for Information Resources and Scholarly Communication.

The nature of the problem has been defined by a variety of organizations, including the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).

SPARC notes the author or authors of a publication, book, or other work holds the copyright “unless and until” they transfer the copyright to someone else. SPARC notes that the copyright agreement received from most journals and publishers asks for “exclusive rights of reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, and modification of the original work.” They note that “Authors who have transferred their copyright without retaining any rights may not be able to place the work on course Web sites, copy it for students or colleagues, … or reuse portions in a subsequent work.” Finally, SPARC notes “The law allows you to transfer copyright while holding back rights for yourself and others.”

Last year, the leadership of the Senate attended a CIC Conference on Faculty Governance at which the CIC Statement on Publishing Agreements was discussed. As of June, 2007, faculty governance from six of the CIC campuses formally endorsed this statement and Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors. This fall, we asked the Faculty Affairs Committee to consider endorsing this agreement for use at Purdue University. As can be seen in Senate Document 07-9, the Faculty Affairs Committee has recommended that the Senate endorse this agreement.

The CIC Statement on Publishing Agreements has also been considered by the ad hoc Task Force on Scholarly Communication at Purdue that was created by the Provost and chaired by Jim Mullins, dean of Libraries.

By passing Senate Document 07-9, Purdue joined other CIC institutions such as the University of Illinois (both the UI-C and UIUC campuses), Indiana University, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison as endorsing faculty rights to retain use of their intellectual property. The Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors is now available for use by Purdue faculty, if they chose to do so.

Click here to read the Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors (pdf).

For more information about the CIC’s involvement in scholarly communication and author’s rights, please visit their website: http://www.cic.net/Home/Projects/Library/ScholarlyComm/Introduction.aspx.

-George Bodner

Edit 09/26/08 — links updated