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Those are two very good points, Vivian (and please, no apology is necessary for your English - far from it). On the second one, some journal and book publishers have slightly different copyright terms to others, but we should insist on the freedom to circulate work to colleagues regardless. 
On the first point, yes, you are absolutely right. Back when I was journal editing, I had no reservations at all about sending off pdf copies of papers to colleagues in countries where subscription to the journal was likely to be out of reach. From the publishers point of view, that might have been compromising a potential customer, but in reality some institutions are never going to afford the inflated subscription charges for major journals, so there is some obligation on those of us with access to be supportive and generous in providing papers. Whether that will put us in difficulties with some publishers is another matter: it depends whether the big publishers really want to put themselves on the wrong side of a moral case.

Terry

Terry O'Connor
Professor of Archaeological Science
Department of Archaeology, University of York
Biology S Block, Heslington,
York YO10 5DD
+44-1904-328619
http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/academic-staff/terry-oconnor/
http://www.sciculture.ac.uk/projects/large-grants/cultural-and-scientific-perceptions-of-human-chicken-interactions/


On 17 October 2013 00:44, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Let me introduce to you another point of view on the subject. And please,
do excuse me for my English. I imagine that with a little effort it could
be understood.

First, I am paid for the Argentinean government to do research in Argentina
(a Third World country where resources did not abound). But when I publish
with the great commercial publishers they request me to confer them my
copyrights. When my country buys a license to these same giants, they
charge it as they charge any other client. So my country can not afford the
full license. Conclusion: I have access to a very scant and limited set of
articles.
So, as a result of this perverse system, my country is financing the great
publishers (by means of my copyrights) while researchers around here, if it
weren’t by our colleagues solidarity, are left aside of intellectual
circulation.

Second, I do not know what happens in other parts of the world but here, in
Argentina, is illegal that the authors can confer their rights to any
publisher because, even if they could be scientist they are matched to the
category of “creators”, just as any other writer. And this is a law voted
at our congress in 1933. You, as an author, keep your right to do as you
want with your work. Maybe in UK or in USA is different but they are not
the whole world. That issue may vary.
In any case, what is the problem with sharing with your colleagues a paper?
It is not a journal issue, not even a whole book we are talking about here:
we are talking about a book’s chapter or a paper. We are talking also about
social networking among researchers, something that allow that some sort of
equity emerges from a very asymmetrical world. Something that Academia.edu
and this list allow us to reach.

Best

Dra Vivian Scheinsohn
INAPL-CONICET/ UBA
3 de Febrero 1370
(1426 ) Capital Federal
Buenos Aires
Argentina
TE/Fax 54 11 4784 3371
E-mail:[log in to unmask]




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