On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:49:41 +0100 Fytton Rowland wrote:
> Until yesterday I was rather strongly of the opinion that
Universities
> should retain the copyright in primary journal articles written
by their
> academic staff, or that the academics should retain it
personally, rather
> than transfer it to the publishers, for the usual reason that
it seems
> inequitable to give away your intellectual property for nothing
and then
> have to buy it back again.
>
snip ....
>
> Although I still hold my original view in principle, I can see
that here are
> practical problems involved if *not* transferring copyrights
becomes the
> norm. It was suggested yesterday that various intermediaries,
such as the
> CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency) or subscription agencies might
provide
> copyright clearance services in such a future scenario.
>
The agency approach seems sound.
An analogy might be with property management.
If I were to win the lottery and buy an apartment building I
would put it in the hands of a firm of agents to handle all the
letting, rent collection, eviction, and general property
management tasks for me. My ownership of the property would be
unaffected by this and with averagely honest and competent agents
the property would very probably be managed more better
and profitably than if I tried to do it myself.
Peter.
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Principal Analyst Fax: +44 (0) 1232 230592
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The Queen's University Of Belfast or: +44 (0) 1232 335375
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