Copyright in the Scientific Community. The Limitations and Exceptions in the European Union and Spanish Legal Frameworks

Author : Itziar Sobrino-García

The increase of visibility and transfer of scholar knowledge through digital environments have been followed by the author’s rights abuses such as plagiarism and fraud. For this reason, copyright is increasingly a topic of major importance since it provides authors with a set of rights to enable them to utilize their work and to be recognized as the creators.

The new research methods linked to technological advances (such as data mining) and the emergence of systems such as Open Access (OA) are currently under debate.

These issues have generated legislative changes at the level of the European Union (EU) and its Member States. For this reason, it is relevant that the researchers know how to protect their work and the proper use of another’s work.

Consequently, this research aims to identify the limitations of copyright in the EU and as a specific case in Spain, within the framework of scientific research. For this, the changes in the European and Spanish copyright regulations are analyzed.

The results confirm new exceptions and limitations for researchers related to technological evolution, such as data mining. Additionally, the article incorporates several guidelines and implications for the scientific community.

URL : Copyright in the Scientific Community. The Limitations and Exceptions in the European Union and Spanish Legal Frameworks

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8020027

Copyright and the Progress of Science: Why Text and Data Mining Is Lawful

Author : Michael W. Carroll

This Article argues that U.S. copyright law provides a competitive advantage in the global race for innovation policy because it permits researchers to conduct computational analysis — text and data mining — on any materials to which they have access.

Amendments to copyright law in Japan, and the European Union’s recent addition of limitations on copyright to legalize some TDM research, implicitly acknowledge the competitive benefits provided by the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law.

Focusing only on U.S. law, this Article makes two general contributions to the literature on fair use: (1) in cases involving archiving, the user’s security precautions are relevant under the first fair use factor and should not be treated as an unenumerated factor or as part of the market harm analysis; and (2) good faith should not be a factor in fair use analysis, but even if courts do consider good faith, TDM research conducted on infringing sources, such as Sci-Hub, is still lawful because the research provides transformative benefits without causing harm to the markets that matter.

This Article also revisits the issue of temporary copies to argue that certain steps in TDM research do not make copies that “count” under U.S. law and that it is possible to design cloud-based TDM research that does not implicate U.S. copyright law at all.

This Article addresses the needs of many audiences including policymakers, courts, university counsel, research libraries, and legal scholars who seek a thorough legal analysis to support this argument.

URL : https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/53/2/articles/53-2_carroll.html

Checking Rights: An IR Manager’s Guide to Checking Copyright

Authors : Stewart C. Baker, Sue Kunda

Institutional repository (IR) managers often find themselves providing copyright guidance to faculty who wish to self-archive their published scholarship or to students depositing theses and dissertations. As IR managers may not be copyright experts themselves, making determinations and checking rights can be difficult and time-consuming.

This article is intended as a practical guide to describe common types of material that can be placed in an IR as well as potential copyright issues and other considerations for each type. Material types covered include book chapters, journal articles, conference proceedings, student papers, electronic theses and dissertations, research data sets, historical and archival materials, and oral histories.

Underlying issues such as copyright ownership, work made for hire, and the legal definition of publication are also discussed. For easier reference, the appendix contains a chart with brief descriptions of issues and resources.

URL : Checking Rights: An IR Manager’s Guide to Checking Copyright

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i3.8248

A Crisis in “Open Access”: Should Communication Scholarly Outputs Take 77 Years to Become Open Access?

Authors : Abbas Ghanbari Baghestan, Hadi Khaniki, Abdolhosein Kalantari, Mehrnoosh Akhtari-Zavare, Elaheh Farahmand, Ezhar Tamam, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Havva Sabani, Mahmoud Danaee

This study diachronically investigates the trend of the “open access” in the Web of Science (WoS) category of “communication.” To evaluate the trend, data were collected from 184 categories of WoS from 1980 to 2017.

A total of 87,997,893 documents were obtained, of which 95,304 (0.10%) were in the category of “communication.” In average, 4.24% of the documents in all 184 categories were open access. While in communication, it was 3.29%, which ranked communication 116 out of 184.

An Open Access Index (OAI) was developed to predict the trend of open access in communication. Based on the OAI, communication needs 77 years to fully reach open access, which undeniably can be considered as “crisis in scientific publishing” in this field.

Given this stunning information, it is the time for a global call for “open access” by communication scholars across the world. Future research should investigate whether the current business models of publications in communication scholarships are encouraging open access or pose unnecessary restrictions on knowledge development.

URL : A Crisis in “Open Access”: Should Communication Scholarly Outputs Take 77 Years to Become Open Access?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019871044

The impact of digital copyright law and policy on access to knowledge and learning

Authors : Tana Pistorius, Odirachukwu S. Mwim

Background

The evolution in digital technologies has had an enormous impact on traditional copyright notions. Works in digital form have uniform characteristics and these works can be copied, distributed and stored with ease.

Objectives

The focus of this article was how to attain a balance between the need to promote access to works and therefore knowledge and learning, on the one hand, and the protection of the interests of copyright holders, on the other.

Method

Technological protection measures (TPMs) are applied to copyright works in digital form to curb infringement. The authors explore the extent to which TPMs impact on access the knowledge and learning.

Results

The findings of this article suggest a need for possible countermeasures in promoting knowledge and literacy through legislative reform that address the needs of creators and users in developing communities.

Conclusion

The authors conclude that TPMs may hinder data literacy, access to works, teaching and learning, particularly in developing communities. For example, recent attempts to revise South African copyright law have not attained a balanced approach.

URL : The impact of digital copyright law and policy on access to knowledge and learning

DOI : https://doi.org/10.4102/rw.v10i1.196

Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

Author : Matthew D. Bunker

Fair use in copyright law is an enormously complex legal doctrine. Although much scholarly attention has been paid to fair use in the context of teaching — particularly in on-line education — relatively little research exists on the problem of fair use in scholarship.

This article analyzes reported federal cases on fair use in scholarly contexts, with a particular emphasis on the transformative use doctrine that has become enormously influential in fair use determinations.

The article explores insights from this body of case law that may assist future scholars wishing to fairly use copyrighted expression in their scholarship.

URL : Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i1.6481

Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

Author : Matthew D. Bunker

Fair use in copyright law is an enormously complex legal doctrine. Although much scholarly attention has been paid to fair use in the context of teaching — particularly in on-line education — relatively little research exists on the problem of fair use in scholarship.

This article analyzes reported federal cases on fair use in scholarly contexts, with a particular emphasis on the transformative use doctrine that has become enormously influential in fair use determinations.

The article explores insights from this body of case law that may assist future scholars wishing to fairly use copyrighted expression in their scholarship.

URL : Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i1.6481