John, et al,
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, John Murtagh wrote:
> Also the legality of the button - it is slightly
> ambivalent if the publisher owns the copyright, are we actually allowed
> to distribute copies, even if this has been academic practise in the
> days before repositories? It seems that we might be getting close to
> limits of fair-dealing. Any views Steven? ;)
>
I'm not a lawyer but I believe that if you persistently fail to enforce a
clause in a contract you may lose the right to enforce it. If publishers
have allowed academics to distribute copies even though the contract
between the publisher and the academic forbids this they (the publisher)
may fnd this clause is now unenforceable. As I said above I am not a
lawyer and may be completely wrong here, can someone with real legal
knowledge comment on this?
Regards,
John Smith,
The Templeman Library,
University of Kent.
|