“The Open Education Initiative (OEI) supports and advocates for faculty to select materials that best fit their students’ needs. Faculty members contact the University Libraries when they realize there will not be enough copies of their selected book for a course. The Office of Scholarly Communication (the unit in which the Open Education Initiative resides) explores options for continued use in a course and determines whether a book is indeed out of print. Most out of print books are the result of publishers deciding that a book is no longer in their scope or no longer profitable to them. While fair-use digitization and very limited sharing of portions of books are options, they are limited, short-term and local options. Using copyright-related tools such as rights reversion, open access publishing processes including open licenses, and the equipment and services of the University Libraries we can provide public access and openly-licensed versions which not only aid students and faculty, but are helpful for students and faculty from other educational institutions as well as the general public.

As many authors sign away their copyrights at the point of publication, rights reversion is necessary for those authors who wish publish open access via a different publisher. Rights reversion can happen in three main ways: First, automatic rights reversion occurs when the terms of a publication agreement with a rights reversion clause is operationalized. (For this reason, we encourage authors to negotiate for a rights reversion clause before signing a publication agreement. We also encourage authors to retain copies of their publication agreements.) Second, for published works that are at least 25 years old and published in the U.S. after January 1, 1978, authors/heirs may be eligible for termination of transfer of copyrights. And third, also the option leveraged for Construction Contracting, the author or estate may contact the publisher to request and obtain rights reversion. (This helpful guide from Author’s Alliance provides further information, tools, and templates for authors and estates.) 

The Open Education Initiative cannot legally represent authors or estates. However, we are happy to advise on strategies for authors and estates approaching a publisher when the author/estate is planning to release rights-reverted works freely and publicly under an open license….”