RE: campus literary journal (Roegge, Kathleen)

["Bill O'Brien" <bobrien@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You can always check in with Copyright Clearance Center or copyright.com
for questions like this or to seek licensing information. CCC is a not
for profit organization addressing the needs of rights holder and rights
seekers.

-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Dufresne [mailto:wdufresne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 9:19 AM
To: digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Olga Francois; Ryan Jerving
Subject: Re: campus literary journal (Roegge, Kathleen)

In my experience, Mr. Jerving's advice is pretty darn good.  And Ms.
Awuku-Agyeman's advice may very well be accurate, offered as it is in
the roll of a non-attorney from across the world wide web.

An intellectual property attorney is, I'd guess, the only person
capable of offering an advisory opinion about who owns the copyright
to those journal submissions.  Knowing nothing about those informal
agreements, and very little about Title 17, I'm incompetent here.  If
a college doesn't retain the services of an attorney specifically
versed in i. p., well, that's more than a bit retrograde at the
beginning of the third millennium.

On a closely-related matter where I have some competence, this is one
academic and editor who distinguishes between his research and
creative work and his career, who values his work as much as he
values his academic career:  asking/demanding an assignment of *my*
copyright in *my* work is more than a bit Draconian, it's kidnapping
my children.  The very use of the word "assignment" raises my hackles.

Here's what I've done as an editor, working the other side of the
aisle from my contributors.  In my experience, it's easier to do -
easier to get - than asking for an assignment of copyright.  Consider
e-mailing your journal's authors, en masse, and asking for a license
for what you really, truly desire.  In your case, it sounds like:

01.  web publishing in .pdf and .html formats on the college's own
site for xx years

*and*

02.  re-prints of whole stories/poems/essays, or of excerpts, as
stand-alone reprints or as a part of any compilations, including
catalogs and reprints of the college's own journals for xx years

Your intellectual property attorney might even advise you to have
some kind of "consideration" change hands, something a tiny bit more
substantive than "we'll credit your name next to your work."  This
"consideration" would be a form of payment for this licensing.  An
invitation to autumn's homecoming dinner, or a trivial amount of
cash, or a mailed coupon for one of the college-branded coffee cups
from the campus bookstore, any might suffice.

I'm optimistic.  There are ways to do this that are easy, simple, and
respectful of the work of researchers and creators.

Sincerely,
==============================================
  Walter Dufresne, adjunct assistant professor
Advertising Design and Graphic Arts Department
   New York City College of Technology / CUNY
    300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY  11201-2983
==============================================
31 Montgomery Place, Brooklyn, NY  11215-2342
  tel:  +1.718.622.1901  fax:  +1.718.789.1452
      e-mail:  wdufresne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
==============================================