Publishers Licensing Society

Excerpt from DPC Annual Report 2008-2009

On behalf of the UK publishing industry, the Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) is a full member of the DPC. Its role is to stimulate innovation and good practice in rights management, in this case by increasing awareness of the importance of preserving the digital objects that manifest copyright and related rights.

Publishers, and in particular scholarly publishers, actively participate in an array of digital preservation activities. Publishers:

• Deposit publications in trusted dark archives such as Portico, CLOCCKS, and LOCCKS where material would be accessible in case of catastrophe;
• Participate in legal deposit initiatives and other projects led by national libraries. For example, in the UK there are voluntary arrangements for legal deposit of digital publications and these are evolving toward statutory licences; and
• Protect digitisation investments through active digital asset management.

PLS has been working with Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), publishers and the trade associations on a series of new license proposals allowing licensees to re-use borndigital material to the usual CLA license extent limits. More and more organisations and businesses are purchasing/subscribing to more digital material. Such a licence will allow organisations to copy limited parts of these works for limited usage. We hear that this provides a convenience to licensees which they find valuable.