The Cost of Copyright Compliance in Further Education and Higher Education Institutions

Citation

Line, M.B. (2002), "The Cost of Copyright Compliance in Further Education and Higher Education Institutions", Library Management, Vol. 23 No. 4/5, pp. 261-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/lm.2002.23.4_5.261.3

Institutions of higher and further education need to use a good deal of copyright material, for much of which licensing and other payment systems have been devised with the aim of ensuring that the copyright owners get a fair return on the one hand, and on the other that the cost to the institutions is not unreasonable and that the processes are as simple as possible. Nevertheless, there has been quite a strong feeling that the total costs of using the systems amount to a considerable burden. The Library Association consequently commissioned a study by LISU, and this document is the report of the study.

A sample of further and higher education institutions was asked to complete a questionnaire. The overall response rate, even after chasers, was 33 per cent – only 25 per cent in the case of further education. Complaints were received that the questionnaires, reproduced in Appendices, were complicated and hard to answer, not only because of the complex nature of the subject but because some of the questions required estimates to be made, e.g. of staff costs.

So the findings cannot be (and are not) claimed to be a fully accurate picture, but they are probably near enough the truth to be of use. It emerges that the costs are neither negligible nor excessive. They represent on average about 0.1 per cent of the institution’s expenditure. The total nationwide cost is estimated at £4.85 million in higher education and £805,000 in further education, which, the authors tell us, “represents about half of the Bodleian Library’s expenditure for 1999‐2000” – not a very meaningful figure, I would say.

What conclusions are drawn? Complying with copyright may not constitute a serious financial burden, but it is a constant irritation, mainly because of problems of interpretation of legislation, the procedures involved, and the number of bodies issuing licences. More could be done to co‐ordinate practice within institutions – few had designated Copyright Officers. More mutual understanding and dialogue between rights owners and users would be helpful.

The caption of Table 14, “Expenditure on matters related to copyright”, should have Additional before the first word.

The study has shed some useful light on a murky area. However, the main findings can be stated on one page, and it is highly questionable if many will want, let alone need, to read this report, which could be published with little reduction as a journal article or made available online (for a fee?). Libraries will almost certainly not want to buy it, at a cost of £1.50 a page.