SIVACRACY.NET

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

To avoid potential legal action by the Association of American Publishers, Cornell University issued guidelines for professors this month on how to place materials on electronic reserve without violating copyright law.

The guidelines were jointly written with officials from the publishing group in a process that began in April, after the group sent a letter to the university complaining that it suspected widespread copyright violations on the campus.

"The university has sought to resolve this matter in a manner that protects the faculty's legitimate interests while averting the threat of litigation," the university's provost, Biddy Martin, wrote in a memorandum to academic deans. The letter, dated September 6, asks the deans to distribute the guidelines to professors.

Allan R. Adler, vice president for legal and governmental affairs at the publishing association, said the group had complained to Cornell after it became aware of practices by some professors there that the group felt violated fair-use provisions of copyright law.

"There seemed to be a very general sense that when you were dealing with materials in an electronic medium, you didn't really need to treat them the same way you did if they were in hard copy," Mr. Adler said.

He said that professors making articles available to students over the Web must use the same rules that apply when putting the articles in printed course packs. "We were able to work out a set of guidelines that have that premise," Mr. Adler said.

Patricia A. McClary, associate university counsel for Cornell, said she believed that the university is no different from others when it comes to putting articles online. "I don't know really that we're relying on electronic distribution any more heavily than our peer institutions are," she said.

She also said she felt the university was typical in terms of professors' awareness of copyright law. "Some people have, I think, a very solid grasp of copyright law, and for other people that may be something that's newer -- we have people here who come from a very wide range of backgrounds."

To help professors determine what they can freely put online or what they would need to pay a royalty to use, the university has also developed a checklist for "conducting a fair-use analysis."

Ms. McClary said that she did not anticipate that the guidelines would have a significant impact on the use of electronic distribution of articles but added that "it's something we're certainly going to look at."

Meanwhile, the publishing group hopes to work with other universities to craft similar guidelines. "We think it's a widespread problem," Mr. Adler said.