Penalty for Posting Article on Faculty Website

[Herb Safford <herb.safford@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings!

A university faculty member posted on his web site a short article [not a
pointer to the article] which he had found published on their website by a
commercial firm [by subscription - not clear whether they charge for
subscriptions].  The author of the article, whose permission to publish on
our faculty member's web site had not been sought or granted, discovered
this posting, and has asked for reimbursement for what she believes to be a
violation of her copyright.  [Following notification by the author, the
faculty member removed the item from his web site.]

The questions we face now are:  1] the legitimacy of her request for
payment, and 2] the fairness of the amount she requests in compensation for
this violation of her copyright.  So far as we can tell, she is correct that
her copyright was violated.  That being the case, we are inclined to be
responsive to her request for compensation.  This leaves us with the
question of how to determine if the amount she deems fair compensation is,
indeed, fair.  We thought that an analogy to the cost of reprints might be
helpful, but those costs vary considerably, and, on further reflection, it
is not clear that the analogy between a reprint of a paper article and a
posting on the WWW holds.

Short of "going to court," does anyone have any knowledge or suggestions
which might be helpful in determining what is fair compensation for the
author?  Any other observations concerning this sort of situation?

Thank you!

Dr. Herbert D. Safford
Information Librarian & Bibliographer
Grant Coordinator
Rod Library
University of Northern Iowa

Herb.Safford@xxxxxxx
(319) 273-3711