Re: Open Access Does Not require Republishing and Reprinting Rights

From: Jan Velterop <jan_at_biomedcentral.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:05:01 +0000

There is nothing against copyright. There is everything against copyright
(or exclusive distribution rights) on research articles being transferred to
the kind of publishers who subsequently use it to restrict - severely
restrict - their dissemination and optimal use. Authors of research articles
should keep their copyright and if they use it properly, they use it to
ensure maximum dissemination, which is where their real interest lies.

Jan Velterop

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Iain Stevenson [mailto:vip_at_soi.city.ac.uk]
> Sent: 16 January 2004 11:42
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: Open Access Does Not require Republishing and Reprinting
> Rights
>
> Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> > The difference for public domain in terms of flexible access to the
> > scientific literature, is only that the original expression of the
> > document, of substantive portions which exhibit originality, is no
> > longer covered by copyright.
> >
> > Other options provide this level of access by means of permissions,
> > the most effective being the copyleft formulation.
>
> I'm sorry Seth but that is nonsense and pernicious nonsense too. There
> is no such thing as "public domain" except for material out
> of copyright
> after the end of the legal term (70 years pma). Copyright applies to
> all original work created (not even necessarily published): Copyright
> is an essential bastion of academic freedom and the only people who
> benefit from its abuse are pirates, charlatans and crooks. It's the
> missing debate in the open access question. How are creators' rights
> protected, particularly in e-environments? Doubtless Stevan will have
> an answer with which I will doubtless disagree. The Bush
> administration
> may disregard Kyoto but I don't think even they disregard Berne!
>
> Iain Stevenson,
> Publishing Studies,
> City University, UK.
>
> net Messaging Program.
>
Received on Fri Jan 16 2004 - 13:05:01 GMT