Assuming you aren’t in the publishing business to make money, then a non-exclusive license should suffice. This means that the author gives you permission to publish her work, but she keeps the copyright and can exercise all her copyright privileges in the future. If you sell copies, then you might want an exclusive license so you will be the only one selling copies or subscriptions. Even here you may let the exclusive license become non-exclusive after a set period of time or when the work goes out of print. For example, your publication agreement could provide that the license will be exclusive for one or two years and non-exclusive thereafter.
While transferring copyright in the article from the author to the library publisher gives the publisher all rights in the article, it’s probably unnecessary, and may be undesirable. Taking a long-term exclusive license or copyright transfer means the library is committing itself to handling any permission requests and making sure the work does not become an orphan. The library shouldn’t hoard copyrights, so only take the rights you need and let the author keep the rest.
Republishing works can be a bit more difficult. If you know who owns copyright in the work, then you may need to get their permission (again, getting permissions in writing is wise). But sometimes copyright owners are not easy to track down.
Imagine you have a book on local history you want to republish on your Web site so genealogists anywhere can look at it without wearing out the book. Ideally, you can track down the author and get permission. But suppose the author moved out of town or died and no one knows how to find him. Or perhaps the author transferred copyright to a publisher, but that publisher has gone out of business or been acquired by a larger company that tossed all their old records. You now have an “orphan work”—a work that may still be protected by copyright but whose owner cannot be located. At this point, you need to find out if the book is still under copyright and, if it is, identify your library’s statutory rights under the fair use doctrine (discussed in Chapter Four) or the Section 108 exemption (discussed in Chapter Five).
Here are questions and answers that cover some of the common issues libraries encounter when publishing or republishing works.
