Re: Authors Re-using Their Own Work

[Heather Morrison]

On 1-Aug-09, at 6:15 PM, Arthur Sale wrote:

Charles

The Australian Act makes no mention of who does the reproduction.
Whether I make a reproduction/copy (say electronic by email, or
photocopy my manuscript or the journal, or some other form of copy)
of my article to give to my PhD student, or he/she does it personally
from a CD I lend or a journal issue they borrow, makes no difference.
I can even ask an administrative assistant to make the copy for me
and deliver it. What matters is that the copy is for the purpose of
research or study. Exactly the same applies to a remote researcher
who asks me for a copy of my article.

Comment:

In Canada, a decision in recent years in which the Supreme Court
sided with the Law Society of Canada on a similar matter against CCH,
supports this view.  In brief, under Canadian law, if the user has
rights under fair dealing, a library as intermediary has the right to
provide services to help the user to make use of such rights.  The
reprint button is a similar matter.  While I am not an expert on
copyright law, my reading is that this not only supports author re-
distribution of their works (arguably common law, since as Stevan and
others have pointed out this has been common practice for many
years), but also automating responses to e-print requests, at least
in Canada.

Copyright law is evolving at an international level.  It is important
for all groups with a stake to ensure their voices are heard,
including academics and librarians.  Otherwise, we may end up with
laws that do not suit our needs at all, such as laws that forbid
tampering with technological protection measures (TPMs), even for
legal purposes, one of the nastier provisions of last year's attempt
at reform of Canadian copyright law.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com

Re: Authors Re-using Their Own Work

[Heather Morrison]

On 2-Aug-09, at 11:26 AM, Stevan Harnad wrote:

(If any service is facilitating fulfillment in the case of the
Button, it is computational services, via the IR software, rather
than library services!)

Comment:  this depends on which department is managing the IR.  In
Canada, this is generally the library.  As reported by the Canadian
Association of Research Libraries, over 80% of CARL libraries have an
operational IR, with more in development.   ARL's 2006 SPEC Kit on
Institutional Repositories (by Charles Bailey), found that 30%
already had an operational IR at that time, and the majority were
expected to have implemented an IR by the end of 2007.  These figures
are obviously out-to-date given the rapid growth of OA by self-
archiving.  More recent figures would be welcome.  However, clearly
in more than one country, IRs are most commonly managed by
libraries.  Other management options may be more common in other
countries, of course.

Links:

CARL Institutional Repository Program:
http://www.carl-abrc.ca/projects/institutional_repositories/
institutional_repositories-e.html

Bailey, Charles.  Institutional Repositories.  July 2006.  SPEC Kit
292.  Association of Research Libraries.  Downloadable from:
http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/spec/complete.shtml

Please note that I am not necessarily advocating implementation of
automated e-print request responses, rather pointing out that we
might be excessively conservative in assessing what our rights
actually are.

For Canadians:  please note that there is copyright consultation
currently underway.  Now is the time to advocate for things like fair
copyright, elimination of Crown Copyright which would free up access
to a great many taxpayer-funded research reports, and against
draconian measures that will limit our access, such as making it
illegal to break a technological protection measure to enjoy a
perfectly legal use of a work.

The Canadian consultation site can be found at:
http://copyright.econsultation.ca/

Michael Geist's blog is a great way to catch up on the consultation:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

For everyone:  there is considerably lobbying at an international
level for changes to copyright law, largely coming from those who
would like to make as much money from IP as possible (e.g., the
entertainment industry, some of the very high profit commercial
publishers).  It is essential that academia has a strong voice in
these discussions, to ensure that scholarship benefits from the
potential of the Internet, and that we do not lose some of the rights
that we already enjoy.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com