MDS to close after 18 years of business

A long-standing and complicated issue involving a product as simple as a coursepack, has now caused one business to shut its doors, closing the book on one man's lifelong vocation at the same time.

Michigan Document Service will be closing at the end of March, nearly 18 years after Jim Smith started the business.

"This is going to hurt students a lot more than it will hurt me," Smith said.

Smith said the business is closing as a result of new copyright laws, which forced Michigan Document Service to revamp its focus and, in the process, lose a majority of its profits.

"I liked what we used to do," Smith said. "What we have to do now is completely different. I do not like what we have been doing in the past year. Staying open is just not economically viable anymore."

NATHAN RUFFER/Daily People walk by Michigan Document Service on South University Avenue yesterday. The store will close its doors at the end of March.

The store changed its procedures last spring, requiring students to make their own copies of material by pushing the buttons of copiers themselves. Smith said he never agreed with this process, but implemented it to follow the law.

"Michigan Document used to be a great place to get a coursepack," University alumnus Beth Chambers said. "But in the last year, it was quite an ordeal."

The store was originally served with a lawsuit in 1992 from the American Association of Publishers, an organization of more than 250 publishing companies, representing approximately 90 percent of the books used by college students across the country.

The lawsuit accused Smith of noncompliance with national copyright laws and came on the heels of the AAP's larger battle with Kinko's, Inc. - a case that Smith said "eventually ended with Kinko's agreeing to lose the case."

After Smith delivered a lecture to the National Association of Quickprinters about copyright laws and fees, Michigan Document Service was charged. A group of publishers wrote a letter to the editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, dubbing Smith the "pirate" of the copying industry.

Smith said he was one of the only people in the industry to stand up against the publishing companies.

"I didn't want to get sued, but I needed to get sued," he said. "I was one of the few people willing to fight the big-shots."

Smith initially lost the case in the federal district court, before the case went to trial. At the court of appeals, a three-judge panel sided with Smith. The AAP later brought forth amicus briefs in defense of the prosecution, which eventually led to the reversal of the decision in November 1996.

Smith decided to contest the case in the U.S. Supreme Court, but in the spring of 1997, his appeal attempt was denied.

University professors said the service the store has provided has been useful to academia.

"The faculty was hoping that Smith would find a way to stay open and win the battle," said history of art Prof. Rebecca Zurier.

Zurier said the structure that has been enacted to charge fees for making copies of copyrighted works has not benefitted higher education.

"I don't think charging fees is the answer," she said. "The imposing of the structure of copyright laws has not promoted the advancement of learning."

Accu-copy, another Ann Arbor copying service, has been a competitor of Michigan Document Service for years. Smith said that his following of laws and Accu-copy's disregard for the law is part of the reason he is shutting down.

While not admitting to violations of the law, Phil Zaret, Accu-copy's proprietor, said his company is not vigilant of all copyright laws.

"We don't necessarily clear everything we copy," Zaret said. Copying stores are required by law to get permission for copyrighted works.

Zurier said that depending on class size, she has chosen to copy at Accu-copy instead of Michigan Document Service to allow her students to save money.

"For a bigger class, I used Michigan Document Service when my concerns were to work within the law," she said.

Smith said the current doleful status of copyright laws can be changed, and that the real instigators will have to be faculty.

03-20-98