Digital Ownership
When Licensing Isn't Enough
Though licensing and SERU act as the dominant access framework to develop digital collections, they present a number of challenges for libraries:
Perpetual Access
User Privacy
Text & Data Mining
These challenges, in addition to the increasingly restrictive nature of vendor licensing practices, present the opportunity to ask alternative questions about the resources we acquire:
True Ownership
Collection Autonomy
Unceded Control
These questions center the subject of digital ownership in a conversation about the ability and autonomy for libraries to acquire content to effectively meet the needs of their user communities.
The topic of digital ownership is not particularly new - from questions surrounding file migration and reproduction in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc. to Clarivate’s decision to phase out one-time perpetual purchases of print and digital books, calls for digital ownership have only grown as legal precedents and vendor decisions have collided with the increasingly difficult realities of developing cost-effective collections.
Digital Ownership Resources
In the face of a restrictive licensing landscape small strides have been made towards realizing an alternative path forward. The resources below highlight the organizations and vendors championing the concepts of digital ownership by effectuating real change in acquisition models and offering libraries the opportunity to actually own their digital collections.
🌐 📜 Principles on Library Ownership of Digital Books - Library Futures
- Published by the library advocacy organization Library Futures, this set of principles was developed by library experts and practitioners to “establish a foundation of trust between publishers and libraries so that publishers can sell digital books to libraries” in the manner of print books, further allowing libraries to “build permanent digital collections”. The principles focus on the core abilities of libraries to own, purchase, preserve, and provide access to digital books, as well as protect reader privacy from third-party entities.
- BRIET is a project from the Brick House Cooperative that allows independent publishers to sell (not license) permanent copies of e-books directly to libraries and schools rather than individuals. With the tagline of “E-Books, for libraries, for keeps”, the project is focused on protecting the traditional rights enshrined in libraries and providing sustainable revenue streams to independent publishers. Key resources include:
- BRIET Terms of Sale, the conditions of BRIET’s e-book sales.
- BRIET Bookmarket, where libraries can purchase e-books under these terms of sale in the vein of digital ownership.
🌐 Digital Ownership - Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)/Lyrasis
- Originally a partnership between the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Lyrasis, The Palace Project enables libraries to purchase and own digital books in a manner akin to print books. This ownership model grants libraries legal rights to preserve, lend, migrate, and transfer digital content without the need of licenses, while maintaining strong copyright protections via digital rights management (DRM) and secure hosting. The tenants of digital ownership used through this initiative and sales model adapt Library Future’s Principles on Library Ownership of Digital Books into a replicable model for other publishers and vendors. Key resources include:
- Digital Ownership overview & FAQ
- DPLA Digital Ownership agreement, including the terms of ownership.
- Palace Marketplace, a platform to purchase select e-books under their digital ownership model.
This toolkit is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License.