Dear Colleagues,
Has anyone else been having problems with the Financial Times Licence?
We have currently reached an impasse over one of their licence clauses and I am keen to ascertain whether other libraries have had similar issues.
We are fortunate to have a colleague in our Law School who is a practising barrister and is happy to run his eye over any licence clauses we have concerns about. He always offers up an alternative form of wording and up to this point we have never had a problem with getting his amendments accepted.
The contentious clause in the FT licence is 5.4 where we have asked for the insertion of the phrase "will use its reasonable endeavours" with regard to ensuring that users only use the licenced in accordance with the terms of the licence.
Our reasoning is that we are a reputable educational organisation which carries our teaching and research for the public good - we are not in business to make commercial profits. We can and will take sensible measures to ensure that our staff and students use the resources we licence in an appropriate manner, and will deal promptly and effectively with any infringements, but beyond that we cannot and will not go. This seems to us to echo the spirit of the JISC standard licence which uses the phrase "reasonable endeavours" in several key clauses.
Later in the same clause there is phrase which states that "The client agrees to fully indemnify the FT against any losses, damages or costs incurred by the FT as a result of any breach of these warranties"
The view from our Legal Eagle, backed up by colleagues in the Research Services Division is that
We must not accept a limitless indemnity clause as this would leave the Library dangerously exposed because we would be liable for any costs that might be incurred by a breach of contract. ( note it is deemed to be the Library that is exposed to the risk and not the University! )
In the past we have always been able to come to a reasonable accommodation with vendors over licence clauses and I think this will be the first time that we have had to withdraw a service because we cannot reach agreement. I have referred the FT to the JISC standard license as a model of how to balance the legal requirements of licensor and licensee but I really don't know what to do next and look forward to hearing others' comments.
Regards,
Jill
Jill Taylor-Roe
Head of Liaison & Academic Services
Robinson Library
Back Jesmond Road West
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4HQ
tel 0191 222 7652
fax 0191 222 7605
email [log in to unmask]
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