I love this time of year: Spring has sprung, new software and new content products are out in the marketplace, and of course the 2009 NFL Draft was conducted! But for the time being I must hold off my dreams of the Redskins XLIV Super Bowl glory and concentrate on currently bigger issues... Bigger issues like how to manage all these new license agreements that come with new content and software products. Yes, I know my thoughts are a little off for actually thinking about license agreements, but call me crazy.
As I have previously mentioned in an earlier blog about SaaS in terms of managing compliance and the license; the management is not easy, not for the publisher or the buyer. The same difficulties that the SaaS model faces of compliance and management, can be applied to when content comes into an organization. Challenges pop up when a buyer has to properly distribute a PDF of a professional journal internally within the organization without violating any terms of the agreement, while at the same time trying to make sure that same professional journal is actually being read (used) in order to justify the price tag that came with its license agreement. Management is not easy.
Some tactics that an organization may consider when trying to be an effective manager of licenses within the organization is to make sure there are effective policies and procedures in place revolving around both software and content procurement and management. End users within an organization must have the proper knowledge on how to properly procure software and/or content within the organization, this will help to provide some control of these assets once in the organization. A properly enforced copyright management plan is a necessity for any organization to effectively manage their rights not only for compliance reasons, but for also having the knowledge of how much the assets are used. The goal of any organization should be to maintain compliance while also maintaining their bottom line by only buying software and/or content that they truly need and use.
A buyer and publisher may want to have a dialog about how to manage licenses for compliance. This dialog could lend itself well to all parties involved in order to prevent unlawful use. However, at the end of the day the responsibility is on the buyer to make sure they are only buying what they need, and nothing more. Otherwise, like an NFL Owner at the Draft the buyer better hope that just signed contract is worth the money!