Re: Evolving Publisher Copyright Policies On Self-Archiving

From: Barry Mahon <barry.mahon_at_iol.ie>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:48:04 +0000

On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 14:27:16 +0000, Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> For at least 92% of this science, no further "protection" is
> necessary -- if only we would stop fussing about IPR and
> focus instead on providing OA: by self-archiving at least 92%
> of our articles -- *now* (without even waiting for our employers
> and funders to mandate it)!

Innocent question:-

In the article cited in the original entry on this subject Paul David says:-

None of the foregoing proposals directly address the troubling possibility that one
day soon either the U.S., or the E.U., or both jurisdictions may have statutes
providing for both legal protection of database rights -- such as now exist under the
EU Directive, and criminal law sanctions reinforcing IP owners -- reliance upon
technological "self-help" -- such as now exist under the U.S. Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. Non-copyrightable and out-of-copyright material then could be
locked up indefinitely in encrypted databases. What to do about the jeopardy into
which that seemingly incremental, evolutionary step would place the future of the
entire regime of limited legal protections for intellectual property, is a problem that
lies beyond the scope of this paper. Conceivably, a concerted campaign to mitigate
the already existing threats to "open science" could contribute to public awareness of
those dangers, and so contribute to forestalling their materialization.

Is he right?? Is there not a risk that archives of papers will be 'locked'
under such legislation??

Is Paul's call for an information campaign not a good idea??

Bye, Barry Mahon, ICSTI
Received on Tue Nov 09 2004 - 12:48:04 GMT