Charles Oppenheim wrote:
>I fully understand Fred Friend's frustration; it adds power to the
>argument that academics should no longer assign all copyright to the
>publisher, and should reserve the rights to copying for study packs;
> in turn, they should then willingly and at no charge
>allow other HEIs to do such copying by means of some suitable
>statement at the start of the article and/or at the start of the book
>chapter.
Yesterday this topic was discussed at the Dawson's Seminar in
Loughborough, but Charles arrived after that particular thread of
discussion had ended. Several major publishers of academic journals are
involved in the HEFCE pilot site licence initiative (PLSI), under which
unlimited electronic access is available to bona fide members of a
subscribing university; I don't know whether that would include downloading
of multiple copies of selected articles for inclusion in study packs,
provided that these were supplied only to members of the university and
without charge beyond the printing cost. Other publishers not involved in
the PLSI are offering similar electronic access deals on a purely
commercial basis, though the differences between their various licence
agreements are causing headaches. The evidence from the discussion at
yesterday's seminar is that publishers of scholarly journals are not
immovable on this issue, though there is disagreement between them.
I think, though, that there's a difference between scholarly (research)
papers and other kinds of publication. Fred Friend mentioned textbook
chapters. People don't get much academic kudos for writing textbooks.
Authors write textbooks for money (their royalty) in the hope that students
will buy their own copies and libraries will buy multiple copies. Copying
really would damage sales of these. I cannot imagine any textbook publisher
author (or publisher) allowing multiple copying of chapters without payment.
The distinction is between papers written as part of a job for which the
author (an academic or research worker) already receives a salary from a
university and does not receive direct payment for their authorship, and
things which people write for a fee or royalty and for which they get no
other remuneration. It's important to remember that intellectual property
law is designed to ensure that creative people (especially freelance ones)
get a fair return on their labour.
Th difficulty, I imagine, would lie in creating a reasonable legal
definition of the difference between these two kinds of authorship,
especially as the same publishing companies are involved in both kinds.
Fytton Rowland, Lecturer, Phone +44 (0)1509 223039
Department of Information and Library Studies, Fax +44 (0)1509 223053
Loughborough University, Internet:
Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://info.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dils/staff/frowland.html
"There isn't a train I wouldn't catch, no matter where its going."
(Edna St Vincent Millay)
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