[GOAL] Re: UK Defamation Bill and OA

[David Smith]

Good spot! IANAL but I think the etc refers to things that could be journals (technical journals etc?) without defining them all. Point 1) under the heading “The publication of a statement in a scientific or academic journal is privileged if the following conditions are met.” Would suggest the defence applies only to things that can be called journals, rather than things that are peer-reviewed in a manner similar to a journal. But then again the etc. could really stand for “There’s a lovely bit of defamation case law ambiguity there for us to earn our crust with”.


From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Pippa Smart
Sent: 14 May 2012 11:35
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: UK Defamation Bill and OA

Is the inclusion of "etc" in the heading of the section meant to signify other academic publications? ("Peer-reviewed statement in scientific of academic journal etc.")

-  if so it will need to be somewhat better defined
Pippa

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On 11 May 2012 09:56, David Smith <david.smith at cabi.org<mailto:david.smith at cabi.org>> wrote:
In singling out peer reviewed scholarly articles, it would also seem to imply no additional protection for material in scholarly books or other longer form content. It does raise an interesting question as to whether somebody could go after a pre-print even if it was in a published journal. Or whether a paper in review has any form of protection – only a problem if you’ve made it public (via a repository) first I guess. Are there any defamation cases that pertain to published literature? The only thing I can think of that comes close is the libel case by the British Association of Chiropractors against the author Simon Singh (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8621880.stm) but that was against an article/blog in the Guardian.

David


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From: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org>] On Behalf Of CHARLES OPPENHEIM
Sent: 11 May 2012 09:27
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] UK Defamation Bill and OA

This has just been published - see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2012-2013/0005/13005.pdf.  Clause 6 gives special protection against defamation actions to peer reviewed scholarly articles (the first time peer review has figured in a piece of legislation??). This is something that scholarly publishers will no doubt pick up on as an argument against unrefereed green OA.

Charles

Professor Charles Oppenheim




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