Re: Self-archiving publications containing quotations

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 23:00:33 +0100

 On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Albert Henderson wrote:

> One cannot really apply "a limited amount of material," to claim fair
> use, to the quotatation [or reproduction] of a picture, a short poem,
> a letter, etc.

Could we please clarify something? Is this thread meant to be about
(1) whether or not one can legally include certain quotations in one's
publications or about (2) whether or not one can self-archive those
publications (having settled the matter about what quotes one can or
cannot legally include in one's publication)?

The first question is irrelevant to this Forum. If this is about the
second, please say specifically what is the issue? That the original
permission to publish the quoted material might have stipulated that
the quoted passage (a) may only be published on paper? (b) only published
online behind a publsher's toll booth? Or what?

It seems to me that in the special case of (a), the only thing that the
author-2 of the publication that quotes (in extenso, beyond "fair use")
the work of the author-1 who does not give permission to quote his text
online can or should do, legally, is not to quote author-1's text online
(but simply refer to the paper in which it appeared). Self-archiving is
only about self-archiving one's own texts, not the texts of others. The
same would be true in a scientific paper in which I am using your data. I
can use your data, I can re-analyze it, interpret it, criticize it,
but if you don't allow me to reproduce it directly, I cannot. Since
it's published, the reader can presumably go to the publication directly
(subject to the usual toll-access constraints).

I'm inclined to think this is a non-issue and we should get back to
substantive matters. If a humanist writes a commentary paper on another
text, with permission to quote the target text on paper but not online,
I think we can swallow that as one of the constraints on *self*-archiving,
make the obvious use/mention adjustments, and move on.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Thu Jun 12 2003 - 23:00:33 BST