As it was filing its fourth lawsuit for copyright infringement in coursepack publishing since last fall, the Copyright Clearance Center announced the settlement of a similar suit dating from October 2002. In the October lawsuit, CCC, along with John Wiley, MIT Press and Elsevier Science, charged Custom Copies & Textbooks and its president, Kenneth F. Roberts, in Gainesville, Fla., with repackaging materials for coursepacks without receiving permission. At press time, the specifics of the out-of-court agreement were not available.
The new filing, this time in federal district court in the Southern District of Indiana, alleges that Collegiate Copies Inc. and its owners, John E. Seeber and Thomas Seeber, routinely reproduced content without seeking permissions. Of the five plaintiffs in the case, both Wiley and Sage Publications have been aggressive in the past in pursuing copyright infringers. However, the other three—HarperCollins, Pearson Education, and Princeton University Press—have not participated in recent lawsuits. CCC v-p of licensing and rights-holder relations Bob Wiener credits CCC's educational program with making publishers aware of the need to be compensated fairly for the use of their works. "A large number of publishers now are prepared to participate in any kind of action should that become necessary," he told PW.
