Copyright Clearance Center Debuts Rightsphere Tool
Periodicals advisory aid gives quick legal answers
By Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 7/15/2006
The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has launched a rights advisory and management tool for corporations that takes the guesswork out of what they can and cannot do with the published information they license. Dubbed Rightsphere, the product was created, CCC claims, to “promote the free flow of published information while respecting intellectual property and copyrights.” Corporations, especially science-based businesses like pharmaceuticals, etc., may subscribe to hundreds of periodicals, making a nightmarish scenario for corporate library staff, upon whose shoulders it falls to keep track of what usage rights accompany each publication from each supplier. Corporate librarians LJ spoke with seemed enthusiastic about the benefits of Rightsphere.
Rights for internal use of data may be completely opposite those for external use, i.e., a scientist may be allowed to share a periodical article with a colleague from within the same company but not with a colleague from another company, or with a colleague from the United States but not one from Europe. Additionally, those rules might differ from title to title even from the same vendor.
CCC told LJ that discerning the exact rights before information is shared sometimes can take a corporate librarian weeks, but Rightsphere does it almost instantaneously. In conversation with LJ, Bill Burger, CCC vice president of marketing, acknowledged that we live in a “collaborative culture. Lots of money is spent on sharing tools since the technology now encourages it. There also is an emphasis on compliance, and those two together create a fertile ground for rights.”
What am I allowed to do?
CCC asserts that copyright violations are legion, not through blatant disregard but out of lack of information or knowledge on what users specifically are allowed to do with licensed content. CCC raked through its annual licenses and per use permissions, licenses purchased from rights organizations in other countries, licenses obtained directly from publishers and information providers, and statutory laws in foreign nations. All this data was boiled down to answer the fundamental question, “What am I allowed to do with this content?”
To address that, Rightsphere has an icon on the toolbar that, when clicked, asks the user, “What do you want to do with the content?” and provides a list of scenarios, such as “emailing it to coworkers, making photocopies, sending to a customer, posting it on an intranet site,” etc., with unambiguous, simple answers.
If the FAQs don't answer your particular query, there is always contacting the corporate librarian through a “Contact Library” button. The questions can be customizable to fit individual business needs. Also, in cases of multiple licensing deals with publishers/aggregators, Rightsphere will show the best available rights. If users need to purchase additional rights, there is an icon linking to a shopping cart and multiple payment options. The product features a nice extra: reports and statistics on materials usage so managers can track what is/isn't being used.
Though Rightsphere is currently designed for the corporate market, CCC told LJ that an academic version is under consideration. The company plans to go after those libraries that don't already have their own ERM (electronic resource management) tool.
