Thomas Krichel wrote:
> I think we will have to get accustomed to the fact that things on
> the internet are only available as long as the holder of write access
> to the disk will allow. The uncertainties over copyright adds to the
> instablity of the environment.
As Giles Martin pointed out, this is no way to run a system of scholarly
information. Once "published", the continued availability of the
information must become independent of the originator. I agree that
copyright and the tendency to have to license everything militates against
this, but we must fight for some sort of licence system which allows for
the continued preservation independent of whether the originator continues
to want it (exceptions for legally enforced withdrawals, eg of libellous
material, of course).
> In Economics, we see the birth of the postprint. A quite famous
> professor has made available over 20 PDF papers, most of them from
> the top journals (in versions immediately before the formal
> publication), on his homepage. If the publishers find out,
> he may be in for some trouble. And it would be worse if there were
> a bunch of libraries that copied the PDF in the meantime :-)
Of course, if he had licensed his articles for print publication as most
do with monographs, he would not be in trouble. Again, we should be
looking at the copyright licensing terms which we agree to; while
electronic publishing rights will almost certainly be required by
publishers, I'm not sure they should be indefinite in duration. Again,
another debate is required on quite what these terms ought to be; I
believe the ARL in America is working on some guidelines just now, but
the discussions are very private.
--
Chris Rusbridge
Programme Director, Electronic Libraries Programme
The Library, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Phone 01203 524979 Fax 01203 524981
Email [log in to unmask]
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