E-Reserves Permissions and the Copyright Clearance Center: Process, Efficiency, and Cost

This study examines the process of requesting copyright permissions through the Copyright Clearance Center’s (CCC) pay-per-use service for electronic course reserves at the Penn State University Libraries in 2008. The authors investigate the efficiency of this process as a function of the percentage of permission requests successfully mediated by the CCC, the time required to submit and fill requests, and transaction and royalty costs. They conclude that, while the CCC is clearly more efficient than attempting to request permission from individual rightsholders, the process remains burdensome and rightsholder royalty pricing models are unclear.