U.S. company based in Danvers, Massachusetts
Copyright Clearance Center
(
CCC
) is a U.S. company based in
Danvers, Massachusetts
,
[1]
(although it is incorporated in
New York State
),
[1]
that provides
collective copyright
licensing services for corporate and academic users of copyrighted materials. CCC procures agreements with rightsholders, primarily academic publishers, and then acts as their agent in arranging collective licensing for institutions and one-time licensing for document delivery services,
coursepacks
, and other access and uses of texts.
History
[
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]
CCC was founded in 1978 as a not-for-profit organization in response to negotiations preceding the United States
Copyright Act of 1976
.
[2]
The
I.R.S.
revoked CCC's tax-exempt status in 1982 and the
United States Tax Court
affirmed that holding, finding that whatever public benefits CCC's activities might produce, its primary purpose was to "further the economic interest of publishers and copyright owners" and its founders (a group of publishers) had no "interests of any substance beyond the creation of a device to protect their copyright ownership and collect license fees".
[3]
CCC still maintains a state-level not-for-profit status in the
State of New York
,
[4]
but for federal purposes is a for-profit company.
Licensing work
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]
CCC is a broker of licenses,
[5]
earning a 15% commission on the fees it collects.
[5]
The company passes more than 70% of its revenues to publishers in the form of royalty payments to rightholders, and another 30% is kept by the company as a fee for its services.
[1]
CCC is a primarily US-based rights broker for materials, including millions of in- and out-of-print books, journals,
newspapers
,
magazines
, movies, television shows, images, blogs and
e-books
. CCC licenses copyright-protected content to businesses and academic institutions, and compensates publishers and content creators for the use of their works.
Amsterdam
-based RightsDirect, the wholly owned
European
subsidiary of Copyright Clearance Center established in 2010, provides copyright licensing services for European-based companies for print and digital content in books, journals, newspapers, magazines and images.
The "collective licensing" model that CCC employs is distinct from
statutory licensing
, in that it is voluntary, as opposed to mandated by statute. As a voluntary industry-developed model, CCC has been able to develop and initiate a variety of different licensing schemes, as well as to litigate and legislate on behalf of rightsholders. The voluntary licenses available from Copyright Clearance Center are of two kinds: repertory (or, annual) and transactional. The license systems are offered through various services, for instance, to corporations (the Annual Copyright License) or to academic institutions (the Academic Permissions Service, among others). Through these, and multiple other mechanisms, CCC collects fees which represent royalty payments and then periodically distributes these monies to participating rightsholders. CCC meets its operating expenses through allocating a fraction of these fees.
[
citation needed
]
Products
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]
In 2000, CCC released
RightsLink
, a product that handles automated permission and reprint requests.
[6]
CCC later expanded into the
search
domain, with a suite collectively known as
RightFind
. To expand this, the company acquired
Pubget
, a search engine for scientists, in 2012,
[7]
although this was subsequently closed in 2017. In 2014 the company acquired Infotrieve, a
text mining
company.
[8]
In 2015 the company announced that
RightFind
could now allow users to search CCC for documents and then export them into 3rd party text mining software, currently limited to only
Linguamatics
or
SciBite
.
[9]
Lobbying and litigation
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]
CCC, along with the
Association of American Publishers
(AAP), recruited three publishers (Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage Publications) to sue
Georgia State University
, alleging that GSU's e-reserves system infringed copyright.
[10]
CCC and AAP jointly underwrote the costs of the litigation in the case,
Cambridge University Press v. Becker
, which cost the plaintiffs several million dollars to litigate initially.
[10]
The plaintiffs lost the case, and were ordered to pay the defendant's legal fees when Georgia State University was deemed the "prevailing party".
[11]
Notwithstanding the "prevailing party" decision, the plaintiffs characterized the case as "flawed" but not a "loss",
[12]
and nonetheless filed an appeal.
[13]
The attorneys' fees were estimated by plaintiffs to be "substantial".
[12]
CCC has announced it will continue to fund 50% of litigation costs on appeal.
[12]
CCC has been involved in lobbying and litigation to expand the scope of copyright, and is a founding member of the
International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations
(IFRRO), which has a similar position.
[14]
References
[
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]
- ^
a
b
c
PrivCo Private Company Financial Intelligence
- ^
"Response To Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.'s Request For Business Review Letter (View the related business review request letter)"
(PDF)
.
The United States Department of Justice
. 7 May 1991
. Retrieved
5 May
2022
.
- ^
Copyright Clearance Center v. Commissioner
, 79 T.C. 793 (1982).
- ^
New York State Office of the Attorney General.
"Charities Database"
.
Charities NYS
. Retrieved
6 May
2022
.
- ^
a
b
Zick Rubin,
"Let's Spread the Word About Fair Use"
,
Chronicle of Higher Education
, Sept. 23, 2012.
- ^
Armstrong, Tracey (2005). "Copyright Clearance Center". In Rupp-Sorrano, Karen (ed.).
Licensing In Libraries
.
Psychology Press
. pp. 61?63.
ISBN
9780789028792
. Retrieved
June 30,
2013
.
- ^
"Florence Healthcare raises $1.7 million to move clinical trials research off paper, into the cloud"
. 3 March 2016
. Retrieved
29 October
2018
.
- ^
"Copyright Clearance Center Acquires Infotrieve"
. 18 November 2014
. Retrieved
29 October
2018
.
- ^
"Copyright Clearance Center Explores New Paths for RightFind"
. 18 August 2015
. Retrieved
29 October
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Meredith Schwartz,
"Georgia State Copyright Case: What You Need To Know?and What It Means for E-Reserves"
,
Library Journal
, May 17, 2012.
- ^
Steve Kolowich,
'The Prevailing Party'
,
Inside Higher Ed
(Aug. 13, 2012).
- ^
a
b
c
Andrew Albanese,
"Publishers Appeal 'Flawed' Decision in GSU E-Reserves Case"
,
Publishers Weekly
, Sept. 11, 2012.
- ^
See
Publishers Brief in appeal
Archived
May 19, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
, filed 2013.
- ^
IFRRO website
Further reading
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]
External links
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]