“The aim of this paper is to support initiatives that stimulate volunteer involvement in creating qualitatively good conversations about the law on the internet. The article’s core argument is that policies on open access, copyright and library services all concentrate nowon the results of scholarly conversations, while a shift in focus towards the process of scholarly communication is needed to develop new incentives for a culture of sharing. Ways to foster openness in scholarly communication need to be discipline specific. This will be elaborated by discussing the plan for an open environment for collaboration on an English translation of a Dutch introduction to private law.”
Archives des mots-clés : copyright
Free-riding, cooperation, and ‘peaceful revolutions’ in copyright
Modern copyright law is based on the inescapable assumption that users, given the choice, will free-ride rather than pay for access. In fact, many consumers of cultural works – music, books, films, games, and other works – fundamentally want to support their production. It turns out that humans are motivated to support cultural production not only by extrinsic incentives, but also by social norms of fairness and reciprocity.
This article explains how producers across the creative industries have used this insight to develop increasingly sophisticated business models that rely on voluntary payments (including pay-what-you-want schemes) to fund their costs of production.
The recognition that users are not always free-riders suggests that current policy approaches to copyright are fundamentally flawed. Because social norms are so important in consumer motivations, the perceived unfairness of the current copyright system undermines the willingness of people to pay for access to cultural goods.
While recent copyright reform debate has focused on creating stronger deterrence through enforcement, increasing the perceived fairness and legitimacy of copyright law is likely to be much more effective.
The fact that users will sometimes willingly support cultural production also challenges the economic raison d’être of copyright law.
This article demonstrates how ‘peaceful revolutions’ are flipping conventional copyright models and encouraging free-riding through combining incentives and prosocial norms. Because they provide a means to support production without limiting the dissemination of knowledge and culture, there is good reason to believe that these commons-based systems of cultural production can be more efficient, more fair, and more conducive to human flourishing than conventional copyright systems.
This article explains what we know about free-riding so far and what work remains to be done to understand the viability and importance of cooperative systems in funding cultural production.”
URL : Free-riding, cooperation, and ‘peaceful revolutions’ in copyright
Alternative location : : http://eprints.qut.edu.au/70343/
MedOANet The Copyright and OA Landscape in Mediterranean…
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MedOANet: The Copyright and OA Landscape in Mediterranean Europe :
“The aim of this paper is to analyse the current copyright framework conditioning the progress of OA in Mediterranean countries and to examine whether this copyright framework needs to be improved and by which measures. In order to do so, this paper firstly introduces MedOANet, which is an EU-funded project the aim of which is to enhance existing national policies, strategies and structures for OA and to contribute towards the implementation of new ones in Mediterranean countries, namely France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. Secondly, this paper gives an overview of the results of a survey which has been conducted in 2012 amongst research publishers by MedOANet. Thirdly, an interpretation of the most striking results of the survey is given: research publishers based in Mediterranean countries have, on average, very OA-friendly copyright and self-archiving policies in place. Some improvements could be achieved by developing an OA-conductive campaign of awareness rising; however, OA as the default way of scholarly communication would best be supported by an OA-friendly legal environment. In the end the author of the paper therefore asks the national and European legislators to introduce an exception or limitation for a green road OA publication of any publicly funded research paper into European and national copyright law.”
URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/index.php/lq/article/view/9126
Study on the protection of research data and…
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Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage :
“This study is basically divided into four parts. Its objective is to examine the legal requirements for different kinds of usage of research data in an open access infrastructure, such as OpenAIREplus, which links them to publications.
Within the first part, the requirements for legal protection of research data are analysed. In the process, the existing legal framework regarding potentially relevant intellectual property (IP) rights is analysed from different perspectives: first from the general European perspective and subsequently from that of selected EU Member States (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK).
It should be noted that the European legal framework is partly harmonised in the field of copyright and largely harmonised in the field of the sui generis database protection right by EU directives. Thus, the national regulations are quite similar in many respects. National differences are described following the section on national implementation in Chapter 2.5.
Despite European harmonisation, the perhaps surprising outcome of the analysis is that there are some areas of dis-harmonisation between the different Member States. One very significant example of dis-harmonisation is the “exception for scientific research” to the sui generis database right. It is not mandatory for this exception to be introduced into national legislation and it seems that every Member State has its own interpretation of the underlying directive. As it is drafted at the moment, the exception is to all intents and purposes useless.
Another area that causes difficulties is the question of who becomes the rightholder of the sui generis right in a database that is created by a public body or in the course of publicly funded research. Indeed it is far from clear. Some might say the research institution or the funding agency or both become the rightholder. But of the legal regimes under consideration in this study, the only jurisdiction with clear regulation on this matter is the Netherlands and it generally denies a public authority the right to exercise the exclusive database right.
Additionally, it is still unclear whether linking, or at least deep linking, should be seen as a relevant act of communication to the public. There are contradictory judgments at the level of the Member States. However, at least this question will soon be clarified in the scope of an actual reference to the European Court of Justice(ECJ).
The second part of the study is dedicated to the scope of protection of the potentially relevant IP rights. First there is an analysis of whether different types of usage, such as linking, access or mining, infringe the different kinds of IP rights. Secondly, a “legal prototype of an e-infrastructure”, based on selected usage scenarios that may occur during the use of e-infrastructures such as OpenAIREplus, is evaluated in more detail. The main outcome of this second part is that by far the most important IP right in the context of e-infrastructures such as OpenAIREplus is the sui generis database right, and that it is very likely not possible to use all the described einfrastructure features without the consent of the respective rightholder(s).
The third part is an examination of some relevant licensing issues. Within this part of the study, different licence models are analysed in order to identify the licence that is best suited to the aim of Open Access, especially in the context of the infrastructure of OpenAIREplus. The result is that the upcoming CC License version 4.0 will probably be the one best suited to this kind of infrastructure. Within the last part, some recommendations are given on improving the rights situation in relation to research data. To respond to the fact that the scientific research exception as presently formulated is rather useless, it is suggested that a new and broader mandatory research exception be introduced on a European level. To achieve legal interoperability of different databases and e-infrastructures, it is recommended that all of them should license their data under the upcoming CC License version 4.0.”
URL : Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage
Open access clauses in publishers’ licenses current state…
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Open access clauses in publishers’ licenses: current state and lessons learned :
“In 2012, the Open Access Agreements and Licenses Task Force was launched by COAR to monitor, evaluate and promote the implementation of effective open access agreements and licenses. The task force has members from the repository, licensing and OA communities who share an interest in promoting sustainable and effective practices for open access. In 2012/2013 the task force undertook an environmental scan of the licensing language for article deposit into repositories. This report presents the result of the review and some lessons learned from organizations that have been successful in implementing OA clauses in publisher licenses.”
URL : http://www.coar-repositories.org/files/OA-Clauses-in-Publishers-Licenses.pdf
The Digital Public Domain Foundations for an Open…
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The Digital Public Domain : Foundations for an Open Culture :
“Digital technology has made culture more accessible than ever before. Texts, audio, pictures and video can easily be produced, disseminated, used remixed using devices that are increasingly user-friendly and affordable. However, along with this technological democratization comes a paradoxical flipside: the norms regulating culture’s use — copyright and related rights — have become increasingly restrictive. This book brings together essays by academics, librarians, entrepreneurs, activists…”
URL : http://books.openedition.org/obp/513
Digital Copyright and Public Access: Why the Knowledge Principle Dictates a Fair Access Right for Public Libraries
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This Article argues that copyright jurisprudence has lost sight of the knowledge principle at the heart of the Constitutional justification for copyright. The Framers envisioned the objective of copyright as promoting the advancement of knowledge for a democratic society by increasing access to published works.
Under what is best termed the “knowledge principle,” access to existing knowledge is a necessary condition for the creation of new knowledge. Copyright jurisprudence has largely protected the interests of producers – from early booksellers to modern Hollywood film companies – failing to notice the central role of access to works as a necessary pre-condition to the creation of new works.
The realities of the digital era further hinder the functioning of this mechanism. Ownership of copies of texts has morphed into a limited right of possession of digital files. Public libraries can no longer fulfill their mission of maximizing the circulation of materials in order to spread available knowledge among citizens.
This Article proposes an alternative model to the conventional copyright theories, focusing on the critical role that access to knowledge resources plays in the dynamic processes at work in the production of knowledge and the creation of new works.
This Article proposes a non-waivable “fair access” right exercisable by public libraries in order to realign copyright with its Constitutional justification, and more importantly to support the knowledge creation process for the future of our democratic society.