Hi Erica,

I teach an online course on "Copyright and Intellectual Property 101 for
Museums".

My advice is that your intitution you go over the current agreement with
this newspaper with a lawyer experienced with intellectual property issues
and then renegotiate the agreement before accepting any new materials from
them into your archives. You can easily estsblish a two-tier licencing fee
structure - one for commercial use and another for reserch and educational
use. You can also consider, as part of your negotiations, establishing a
preservation fee on the newspaper for the staff time abd resources in
maintaining their collection that they are collecting 100% of the licensing
fees on. If you eventually digitize this collection you will also be adding
to their value for the newspaper. That could be a pathway to negotiate your
way into receiving a percetage from the licensing fees for this collection
that you will be administering and caring for.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Principal Conservator & Museum Consultant
Los Angeles CA USA
www.cityofangelesconservation.weebly.com

On Thu, Apr 18, 2019, 7:23 AM Erica Travis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Good morning listers,
>
> I'm writing in the hopes that some of you may have dealt with a similar
> situation or may have some advice on ways that my institution can improve
> and clarify our relationship with a media group that holds copyright to a
> local newspaper.
>
> About nine years ago, we acquired the clipping and photo files, microfilm,
> and bound volumes from a local newspaper. Since then, the production of a
> physical paper ended, and the parent company, mLive, produces only digital
> news content. I wasn't on staff at the time of acquisition, but from what I
> know they intended on disposing of the physical archive if we were not
> interested in any or all of the materials, giving us at least some leverage
> to renegotiate the agreement with them from c.2010.
>
> At this time, we are in the construction phase of a museum renovation,
> which includes integrating the archive  into the main museum building
> (currently it and Collections staff are housed in a building across the
> street) so we anticipate greater visibility and use and believe this may be
> good timing, not to mention the very movement of the material to the main
> building is affecting (and sometimes dictating) construction and design
> decisions, so we feel it's essential to readdress our agreement with them.
>
> Our main points of contention are that the original agreement stipulates
> they get unfettered access to the collection, which sometimes comes at very
> inconvenient and unscheduled times, which as you can imagine, can be
> disruptive to our staff. Secondly, we have learned from those seeking to
> reproduce materials from the collection that the licensing fee is $300.
> Generally speaking materials reproduced for personal research or use do not
> get assessed a fee, but for example, a local professor is looking to
> include photos from the newspaper in an exhibition (I believe on campus)
> and has been assessed this hefty fee. This is especially frustrating,
> considering we have also hear they are difficult to communicate with and
> get approval from. I understand there is nothing I can do about their right
> to retain copyright, but hope they might be willing to negotiate lower fees
> for reproduction by non-profits or academic institutions for whom several
> hundred dollars is a cost they cannot bear.
>
> I find it hard to swallow that they receive all the financial reward for a
> collection of material that they found so invaluable that they would throw
> it in the trash if we didn't accept it, and for which they were not willing
> to expend any funds to store, arrange, or care for.
>
> I wondered if any of you out there are in or are aware of a similarly
> murky relationship with an outside entity that ties your hands like this or
> makes things difficult on your researchers, and if you have any suggestions
> on how we might successfully renegotiate an agreement. If you are or have
> been in a similar situation, I would be interested in seeing any of the
> agreements you have in place so that we have some reference for jargon, etc.
>
> Thank you all in advance!
>
> Best,
> Erica
>
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