Copywrongs

Chasing campus royalties

Across the street from the entrances of most U.S. college campuses are clusters of small photocopying operations that taken collectively just might make up the largest university publisher in the nation. They reproduce large swatches of fiction and nonfiction, ad hoc anthologies of articles and book excerpts, academic texts and scientific papers, often with faculty approval and frequently at their behest. But in seeming violation of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act, no royalties are usually paid to the authors or publishers of the original works. In an effort to get the academic community to stop copying off their pages, nine major U.S. publishers last week sued New York University, nine faculty members and an off-campus copy center, charging them all with copyright infringement.

In their complaint, the publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, and a Time Inc. subsidiary, Little, Brown, charge that the faculty members "regularly select" copyrighted material and arrange for the photocopy store to run it off. These "anthologies" become, in effect, student textbooks. The Association of American Publishers, which is financing the suit, concedes that N.Y.U. is not the worst offender. "There is widespread noncompliance in the academic community," says A.A.P. Copyright Director Carol Risher. "But many schools have done more than N.Y.U. to educate their professors about the copyright law."

Educators contend that the copyright regulations are confusing, but some schools are trying to comply. Copyright warnings are posted on the sides of machines on the Williams and Yale campuses. The A.A.P. has handed out a set of guidelines drawn up by the House Judiciary Committee. "Brevity and spontaneity" are key standards. Small extracts may be duplicated for each student in a class when a professor comes across printed material that might augment his lectures. "But you can't do it semester after semester," says Risher. "And you can't make up anthologies. You have to get permission." Helpfully, the A.A.P. has a pamphlet on how to do that.

Although the N.Y.U. suit is the first one to name a university and faculty members, the A.A.P. has already forced two chains of near-campus copy shops to stop duplicating anthologies. And in settlements with the American Cyanamid Co. and E.R. Squibb & Sons, both manufacturers agreed to report usage and pay royalties to the Copyright Clearance Center when they copy scientific research papers and texts. The royalties are then distributed to the publishers, who give "after the fact" authorization. N.Y.U. may come to a similar arrangement. But the A.A.P. did not negotiate with the university before bringing suit. The association clearly hoped that news of the suit would shock other schools and professors into compliance.

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