Re: "Authors Re-using Their Own Work"

From: Klaus Graf <klausgraf_at_GOOGLEMAIL.COM>
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 23:51:55 +0200

2009/8/1 Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>:
> On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, C.Oppenheim wrote:
>
>> Thus, in law, if Dr Jones asks Dr Smith for an electronic copy of
>> Dr. Smith's article, and Dr Smith gave away the copyright to Megacorp
>> Publishers, then Dr Smith should strictly not supply that copy...
>>
>> Stevan and others are of course correct that IN PRACTICE there is little a
>> publisher can do to stop this sort of activity, but that doesn't make it
>> any
>> more legal...
>
> I shall have to rest my case on this issue. If 50 years and millions upon
> millions of eprint requests by researcher-users to researcher-authors,
> fulfilled, uncontested, is not enough evidence that this is not an issue
> of substance, then no amount of evidence will be enough:

As I have argued before there is strong evidence that the eprint
request button isn't legal in Germany.

The copyright landscape is changing. What wasn't a problem since 50
years can now become a problem in the digital age.

Publishers are more and more trying FUD strategies.

The only way to escape is retaining copyright. This is essential and
ignoring it is the wrong way.

European humanities scholars are not ISI slaves. They often publish in
non-English high quality journals which are NOT peer-reviewed (this is
NOT a contradictio in adiecto). If there is no cogent necessity they
can publish in golden OA journals without fearing tenure disadvantages
or can choose journals which will accept e.g. a CC-BY license.

Klaus Graf
Received on Sun Aug 02 2009 - 02:24:49 BST