Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist

From: Alan Story <a.c.story_at_ukc.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 15:14:40 -0000

Seth:

Indeed, you were starting to sound like SOME lawyers...and in fact, on the
one hand, many legal "precedents" are completely unhelpful and/or easily
manipulated (see the comments of Lord Denning on " fair dealing" in the 1972
UK case of Hubbard (as in Chairman Ron of Scientology) v. Vosper, and, on
the other hand, numbers of supposed "precedents", including in the field of
copyright, are regularly bent or ignored. The process goes by the name of
"distingishing" cases.

Best wishes
Alan Story
Kent Law School
Canterbury UK


-----Original Message-----
From: September 1998 American Scientist Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]On Behalf Of Seth
Johnson
Sent: Sunday 10 February 2002 14:51
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist


Okay. As long as you're dealing with expressive wholes,
you're standing on legal precedent.

It would help if some stipulations were made to assure that
it's clear you're talking about the original presentations,
presentations to which the author asserts authoritative
origin, and presentations of originality that may be false.
The factual elements of any expressive work are fair game.
This is essential from the standpoint of free online
collaboration.

Now, much as I might sound like it, I am not a lawyer.

Seth

Stevan Harnad wrote:
>
> Toll-free access to the full text means you do not have to pay to read
> it, print it out, use it in your further research -- not even to
> republish or try to sell it (though lots of luck selling it, given its
> feely accessible already!).
>
> But what you may not do is:
>
> (1) claim to have written it yourself
>
> (2) publish it omitting the name of the author(s) and original
> locus of publication (if any)
>
> (3) publish it with any changes in the text (or without noting
> abbreviations).
Received on Sun Feb 10 2002 - 15:29:30 GMT