Rolf Turner wrote: > > On 23/01/2009, at 12:49 AM, Neil Shephard wrote: > > s > Is this really a violation of copyright? If I have a copy of a > journal I believe > it is within the compass of ``fair practice'' (or some such jargon) to > make a photocopy > of a particular article and give this copy to a colleague or student > for research > purposes. Likewise I believe it is ``fair practice'' for me to send a > copy of a pdf > file (that I have legitimately acquired) to a colleague or student for > research > purposes. >
one message that is pervasive on this list is 'what you believe is not necessarily what really is'. it seems to be applicable here, rolf. many scientific journals restrict your rights to distribute your own articles published with them, and you can buy printed copies for redistribution or rights to make pdfs available for a limited number of downloads, etc. see, e.g., [1]. it may be ``fair practice'' to distribute your papers without asking the publisher for permision, and it is quite common and indeed very useful, yet it may still be a violation of copyright. 'legitimately acquired' is underspecified, as in many circumstances you acquire a pdf of your article or book for your own use only, not for redistribution. otherwise, a 'legitimately acquired' article sent to another person is surely 'legitimately acquired' by that person, and thus, by induction, can be further distributed for 'legitimate acquisition', with no limitations in sight. that said, i support the view that scientific work should be redistributable without restrictions. on this occasion, i inform the person who once asked about anyone sharing a pdf copy of Prof Brian Ripley's book on spatial statistics that one of my colleagues happens to have such a pdf and will probably be happy to redistribute it. vQ (one of *the trolls*, i guess) [1] http://www.nature.com/reprints/author-reprints.html ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.