CodeX and Media X Project for Course Readers

Stanford’s libraries dole out millions of dollars each year in copyright payments so that faculty, students, and staff can have ready and easy access to published works. But when students purchase course readers for classes, they are also charged for copyright, often paying for the same rights the libraries already purchased.

Not anymore. The new Stanford Intellectual Property Exchange (SIPX), piloted last spring and launched more widely this fall in “print-on-demand” deployment for course readers, will prevent duplicate copyright payments and save students an estimated 25 to 78 percent of the usual cost. Researchers from the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics (CodeX) and from Media X at Stanford University launched the new system to register and transact intellectual property for copyrighted materials used in course readers. It was developed by a multidisciplinary team jointly led by Michael Genesereth, associate professor at Stanford’s Computer Science Department (and by courtesy of the law school) and research director of CodeX, and Roland Vogl, JSM ’00, lecturer in law and executive director of both CodeX and the Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology.

SIPX allows the print system to become “legally trained” to automate aspects of complex licensing processes, including accommodating customized copyright pricing and dynamically calculating royalty payments that account for pre-existing rights to content through Stanford library subscriptions.

“It’s a big savings—and a cool project. This is cutting edge,” says Vogl. The larger project—the Stanford Publish on Demand Initiative—received funding from Media X when Vogl pitched the idea of using technology developed at CodeX for SIPX in publishing. The SIPX concept was enabled by seed funding from Media X in 2005, in the Online Digital Content research initiative. SIPX facilitates access to content by providing a copyright registry, marketplace, and clearance service that can connect with third-party distribution platforms, as well as identify pre-existing rights and licenses. “It’s a bit like eBay for legal copyright,” says Vogl. The course reader program is the first of what Vogl hopes will be ongoing research into innovative uses of SIPX, such as implementing SIPX technology into electronic and mobile distribution of academic content.  Learn more about this and other projects.