[Yulpub] FW: Continuing impact of Tasini

[Horning, Emily]

Those of you who use Lexis-Nexis will be interested in this discussion (read from the bottom up).  Note especially Alistair's third sentence ("Since the decision ...").

Emily
________________________________________
From: LN Academic list [ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM] On Behalf Of Morrison, Alistair (LNG-BET) [Alistair.Morrison at lexisnexis.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 11:20 AM
To: ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM
Subject: [ACADEMIC-LIST] Continuing impact of Tasini

Dear Colleagues,

Adrienne is correct.  The stubs that used to appear were for the
articles that pre-dated the Tasini decision and had to be removed.
Since the decision, the publishers do not send us the excluded articles,
and they do not include any notice that the article has been omitted.
Occasionally a publisher will notify us that they need to remove an
article that was included by mistake. This generally is accomplished by
reloading part of the feed, which again leaves no sign that the article
was ever published.

It seems (to me anyway) that the newspaper publishers now treat the
online edition as they used to treat the different early, late, local,
etc. editions in the print: all the editions for that day are basically
the same but no guarantees.

This does present a challenge when trying to decide whether to keep
print archives.  Others on the list may have some suggestions for
selecting what to keep.  Since the decision, articles written by regular
staff of the newspaper are all licensed for online use. The omissions
seem to be most common for freelancers and guest contributors.

Best regards,
Alistair

Alistair Morrison | Product Manager, LexisNexis Academic & Library
Solutions
LexisNexis, 7500 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 1300, Bethesda MD 20814
Telephone: 301-951-4529 | Switchboard: 800-638-8380 | Fax: 301-652-1273
Email: alistair.morrison at lexisnexis.com
Website: http://academic.lexisnexis.com

Subscriber Wiki: http://wiki.lexisnexis.com/academic
Web Subscription Support: academicsupport at lexisnexis.com
Join Our ListServ: http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/listserv

-----Original Message-----
From: LN Academic list [mailto:ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM] On
Behalf Of Franco, Adrienne
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 10:38 AM
To: ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-LIST] Continuing impact of Tasini

I would think that since Tasini, option 2 would be the case, i.e. that
current contracts with freelancers would include electronic access.  The
argument used by freelancers originally was that they never agreed to
allow electronic access, but that was largely because electronic access
didn't exist at the time the contracts were written (or was in its
infancy and not considered significant yet).  It would make sense that
now that electronic access is available and is increasingly the major
form of access that publications would now include this in their
contracts.  If this is correct, the major loss would be for older
articles.
I guess technically a freelancer could refuse to sign a contract with
electronic access provisions but that might mean fewer publication
opportunities for them and potentially loss of income.

Adrienne Franco / Iona College / New Rochelle, NY  10801

-----Original Message-----
From: LN Academic list [mailto:ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM] On
Behalf Of Jill Vassilakos-Long
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 5:34 PM
To: ACADEMIC-LIST at LISTS.LNACADEMIC.COM
Subject: [ACADEMIC-LIST] Continuing impact of Tasini

Our library is considering deaccessioning a few of our print newspaper
indexes.  One concern is that they may provide the only intellectual
access to news stories written by freelancers, stories that were
removed from databases in response to Tasini v New York Times.

Several of us remember finding "stubs" of stories that had been removed
from Lexis-Nexis; but the last time that happened was several years ago.

Does anyone know what happens to free-lancers' stories now?

It seems likely that either:
1) Lexis-Nexis worked with newspaper publishers to develop a
workflow that blocks the loading of stories for which the newspapers
do not own copyright. The stories are never loaded... after they appear
in print they are microfilmed, but no hint of them appears in any
database.

OR
2) Newspapers re-wrote free-lancers' contracts so that they comply with
Tasini concerns and the newspapers have the right to provide paper,
microform, AND electronic access to the stories written by free-lancers,
in which case the stories are appearing in databases in their entirety.

The two possibilities seem equally likely.  Does anyone have any idea
if either of them is true?

Sincerely,
Jill Vassilakos-Long
California State University, San Bernardino
jvlong at csusb.edu