LJNDawson.com, Consulting to the Book Publishing Industry
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Textbook publishers sue GSU

I'd wondered when this was going to happen. In the white paper I wrote last year about publishing and libraries, Convenient Convergence, I proposed that textbook publishers look at licensing their content to libraries, so that students could seemingly access their textbooks for "free", and textbook companies could continue to get paid, just under a different model.

Looks like Georgia State University's library has gone ahead and done something just like this - only without making a licensing deal with the publishers involved (Oxford, Cambridge and SAGE):

As of Feb. 19, the university's library electronic course system listed more than 6,700 works that were available for more than 600 courses, the lawsuit said. By allowing such widespread access, students can obtain many of the required reading materials for their courses without ever setting foot in a bookstore or spending any money for them, the suit added.

OUP, CUP and SAGE have filed suit. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
New York attorney R. Bruce Rich, who represents the publishers, said other universities, when notified, have worked out license agreements with publishers over the use of copyrighted materials.
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Posted by Laura Dawson , April 17, 08, 9:56 AM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post
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