Re: Zen response to e-Archiving Challenge

From: Albert Henderson <chessNIC_at_COMPUSERVE.COM>
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 14:23:30 -0400

on 29 May 2001 Charles Oppenheim <C.Oppenheim_at_LBORO.AC.UK> claimed:
 
> Albert Henderson stated:
>
> > First, the transfer of copyright covers all copies
> > before and after. Copyright does not differ much
> > from the cake you cannot eat and then have.
> >
> > Second, AGU et al. v. Texaco proved infringement all
> > the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is no different.
>
> Copyright infringement takes place when person B *copies* a work owned by
> person A. In this case, person B is the original author, and person A is
> the publisher to whom person B has assigned copyright of a *later version*
> of the paper. So infringement cannot have taken place. The real question
> is whether person B was in a position to assign copyright to person A, and
> if (s)he was not, then there is a potential breach of contract, but not
> infringement. Copyright infringement cannot take place where no copying of
> a document took place.
>
        I will try to make myself clear.

        By providing the means to make copies of a work after transferring
        its copyright and without the consent of the new copyright owner,
        the author contributes to infringement. He/she is also probably in
        violation of the transfer agreeement or worse.

        My impression is that the owner of the means of infringement, in
        this case owner of the Internet server, is also liable after being
        informed that copies are being made without the copyright owners'
        consent.


> AGU versus Texaco was a case concerning fair use in photocopying of
> published journal articles. It was nothing to do with preprint (or any
> other type of) archives. The discussion we are having is nothing to do
> with fair use.
>
        In AGU vs Texaco, fair use was the defense, not the plaintiff's
        claim. The case involved infringing photocopies of journals to
        which the defendant had subscribed. It seems to me that making
        copies of journal articles not purchased in any form would be
        an injury at least one notch higher.

        I am not an attorney, of course, so if any with a copyright
        practice would like to chime in, please do so.

>
> In response to my comment:
>
> >> Blaise Cronin did some important research about ten years ago that showed
> >> that US academics' salaries were directly correlated with their citation
> >> counts. Since citation counts are (it is universally agreed) a measure of
> >> a scientist's impact, I think the relationship IS proved - unless Albert
> >> has evidence contradicting Cronin's results?
>
> Albert replied:
>
> > Cronin and Overfelt focused on a single SLIS department
> > and produced a table that compared full professors
> > with assistants and associates on a given day. They
> > did not set out to study the relationship of cites
> > to income, nor did they do so with their data. Their
> > aim was elsewhere. They emphasized, "The conclusion
> > must be that most other top-ranking library and
> > information science schools have less impressive track
> > records than Indiana ...." and so on. (JASIS 45:61-72 1994)
> > They also pointed out that the most highly-cited LIS
> > journals are not refereed. Is that the work you had
> > in mind??
>
> No, it is not. The article I was referring to *was* about income.
>
        If you would enlighten us with a cite, we would be grateful.
        


> Albert also noted:
> >
> > The application of Lotka's law by Price, which I
> > referred to above, would seem to stand.
>
> Alas, Lotka's Law is nothing to do with academics' earning power.
>
        In other words, the distribution of productivity of scientists
        has nothing to do with the distribution of their earning power.



> Albert's other points were so off topic, there is no point in responding to
> them.

        Thanks anyway for your interest.


Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532_at_compuserve.com>
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT