Publishers concede that sourcebook costs have gone up, but only because so many copiers and universities were not in compliance before. Publishing companies deny that there has been any increase in the royalty fees themselves.

"There may be an increased labor cost," says Platt.

But she adds, "These requests have always been folded in. If prices have gone up dramatically, it's only because they were underpriced to begin with."

Although Harvard as a whole has a good record of complying with copyright laws in the past, The level of compliance among Harvard departments is more difficult to determine.

A December 1986 report written by Harvard attorney Allan A. Ryan urged professors to obtain permissions for everything they copy for a course--the same position that the AAP currently promotes.

Many of Harvard's larger departments and some graduate schools moved quickly to bring themselves into line with the report. For Core courses, an office to produce sourcebooks and comply with copyright laws was established one year earlier. And the Department of Economics, for example, has two people working on the production of sourcebooks.

"We're very careful," says Douglas W. Elmendorf, assistant professor of economics and head section leader for the biggest course in the College, Social Analysis 10, "Principles of Economics." "There are people who don't go to this much trouble."

But some industry experts and Harvard administrators worry that publishers, many of whom have seen permission requests double in the past year, are thinking too much about money and not enough about the academic community.

Companies, concerned about protecting their profit ledgers and keeping royalty fees rolling in, may be charging prices professors cannot pay or, in some cases, refusing to grant permissions all together.

"[The push for] compliance could restrict the kind of material that is available and the manner of availability," says Jeff Hazlett, a Congressional lobbyist for the quick printing industry.

Some Harvard professors and section leaders say publishers on average have denied access to about 10 percent of the material requested. In Foreign Cultures 14, "Society and Politics in India," 10 of the 30 pieces planned for the sourcebook could not be used, according to teaching fellow Rina Verma.

While professors say the denials of their permission requests constitute a nuisance, there are almost always alternative texts that can be used.

"I'd like to have my first choice on all the articles we assign," says Dillon Professor of International Affairs Joseph S. Nye, who taught Historical Study A-12 in the fall. "But I don't think it had any distorting effect on the course."

Publishers, however, say that access is not a God-given right. "The entire industry benefits from this," says Platt. "The whole publishing process is based on the idea of intellectual property. The creator needs an incentive for that creation."

But Harvard administrators and professors say that students will bear the burden of increased copyright enforcement.

"Publishers are becoming stingier. Some publishers are now exercising a 10 percent rule, which is if you want to use more than 10 percent of the book, you have to have the students buy the book," Owen says.

"So, as a result, there was at least one reading where I had to excise a few pages from the middle of a chapter to get us under the 10 percent limit. It was silly, but we had to do it," he says.

With the upcoming Smith case, industry experts differ over what the ultimate legal result will be. Smith was slapped with an injunction by a federal judge in Michigan last week and was forbidden to copy any works published by the three publishers who are suing him.

Even if the case is resolved in favor of Smith, publishers still control the sourcebook industry.

"The fact is the publishers own it," says Hazlett. "The needs of the students monetarily might be outweighed by the rights of the copyright holder."