> From: [...] Jonathan Bell [jpb]
> My suspicion is that your "once only" approach might open a slightly
> malodorous can of worms in the case of materials with several authors,
> especially where they are from different institutions.
That's putting it mildly. Let's look at it from first legal principles
and assume international collaboration as well as national...
If you have:
- Contracts (of which a licence is one form) that you trust to be
binding (exchanged in a legally binding form, adhere to current contract
law and precedent, no issues with choice of law for international
authors, no issues with Unfair Contract Terms Act etc) and that have not
expired
- with *each of the copyright holders* (not necessarily the authors)
unless the submitter can demonstrate that there is an agreement in place
between all of the copyright holders that allows one to submit to the
repository *and* can demonstrate that the agreement is no less
restrictive of the repository's rights than the licence you have put in
place with the submitter
... Then you can probably go ahead with a clear conscience under the
laws of England and Wales. I can't tell you anything about other legal
frameworks, and my (general) legal and contract law knowledge stops
short of any benefits you may be granted by more specific laws - for
that I would defer to the experts who are no doubt reading this and
laughing.
- Peter
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