Dear John and others,
Formally, at least according to Dutch Copyright Law, only the copyright
owner is allowed to disseminate copies of the article. When the
publisher is the copyright owner, the author cannot freely give away
copies by email or whatever medium. (Often publishers give the author a
certain amount of print or electronic copies for distribution to
collaegues, friends, etc) However, it is hardly or not to check whether
authors spread print or electronic copies illegally.
Apart from the discussion about what is allowed and how a contract is
checked, you have to think about the usefulness of the button. In many
cases the use of it is allowed, for instance when the author is
copyright owner. Perhaps a general notice about copyright restrictions
is adequate to stimulate the correct use of the facility.
Regards
Maarten
Maarten van Bentum
Coordinator Scientific Output Repository/Information specialist Civil
Engineering
Service Center for Information Technology, Library and Education (ITBE)
University of Twente
Building Langezijds, room 3503
tel +31534894474
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of J.W.T.Smith
> Sent: donderdag 18 januari 2007 12:57
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Dealing with embargoed articles in IRs
>
> John, et al,
>
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, John Murtagh wrote:
>
> > Also the legality of the button - it is slightly ambivalent if the
> > publisher owns the copyright, are we actually allowed to distribute
> > copies, even if this has been academic practise in the days before
> > repositories? It seems that we might be getting close to limits of
> > fair-dealing. Any views Steven? ;)
> >
>
> I'm not a lawyer but I believe that if you persistently fail
> to enforce a clause in a contract you may lose the right to
> enforce it. If publishers have allowed academics to
> distribute copies even though the contract between the
> publisher and the academic forbids this they (the publisher)
> may fnd this clause is now unenforceable. As I said above I
> am not a lawyer and may be completely wrong here, can someone
> with real legal knowledge comment on this?
>
> Regards,
>
> John Smith,
> The Templeman Library,
> University of Kent.
>
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