<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
A few days ago, Republicans released a report about flaws of
copyright law, suggesting revolutionary reforms. Very important
initiative for all academia. Scholars should speak and strongly back
the initiative, to help liberate academic literature. You can read a
write-up <a
href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121116/16481921080/house-republicans-copyright-law-destroys-markets-its-time-real-reform.shtml">here</a>.
Some quotes:<br>
<ul>
<li>[about term of protection]<i> ... Gradually this period began
to expand, but today’s copyright law bears almost no
resemblance to the constitutional provision that enabled it
and the conception of this right by our Founding Fathers.</i><i><br>
- Original Copyright Law [AD 1790]: <b>14 years</b>, plus 14
year renewal if author is alive. <br>
- Current Copyright Law: <b>Life of author plus 70 years</b>;
and for corporate authors <b>120 years after creation</b> or
95 years after publication.<br>
<br>
</i></li>
<li><i>copyright continue to be extended perpetually, ensuring
that works <b>never</b> actually enter the public domain
(...) that would effectively nullify Article I, Section 8,
Clause 8 of the <b>Constitution</b> which provides protection
only for “limited times.”<br>
<br>
</i></li>
<li><i>[copyright] <b>penalizes legitimate journalism</b> and
oversight (...) Current copyright law allows for producers of
written materials, such as memos or other documents, to claim
copyright when they are seeking to hide incriminating
information.<br>
<br>
</i></li>
<li><i>Because there is minimal or nearly non-existent punishment
for bogus copyright claims today, false takedown requests are
common and have a chilling effect upon legitimate speech.</i><i>
(...) This often leads to de facto <b>censorship</b>.<br>
<br>
</i></li>
<li><i>Current copyright law does not merely distort some markets
– rather it <b>destroys</b> entire markets.<br>
<br>
</i></li>
<li>[from Infringement Nation] <i>things you do every single day
are infringing and leave <b>every single person</b> liable
for <b>billions in damages</b> each year</i></li>
</ul>
(emphasis mine)<br>
There's a separate section on academic literature. Quoting in full:<br>
<br>
<b>B. Hampering scientific inquiry:</b><br>
Scientific papers from the early portion of the 20th century are
still under copyright. . .<br>
This is illogical, as the purpose of most scientific papers is to
further intellectual<br>
inquiry, and the goal of most authors of scientific papers is to
advance their field and<br>
to be cited in other publications. Many professors are assessed upon
the number of<br>
citations for their major works. For these reasons, keeping their
work in what are<br>
effectively locked vaults defeats the purpose of much of their work.<br>
Obviously these producers need to be compensated to justify the cost
of their<br>
research, but after around 14 years, most, if not nearly all, of the
earning capacity of<br>
their work has been exhausted, and at that point the overriding
interest is in ensuring<br>
that these works are available for others. While there are
exceptions in the law for the<br>
use of this material for good faith exceptions, there are numerous
examples where<br>
for-profit entities want to use published journal articles but are
unable to do so<br>
without negotiating a payment to the producer of the content.<br>
If however, these older papers were available online for free on
Google Scholar to<br>
anyone to access and use after a reasonable period of time then it
would greatly<br>
increase the availability and utilization of scientific analysis.<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Marcin Wojnarski, Founder and CEO, TunedIT
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tunedit.org">http://tunedit.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.facebook.com/TunedIT">http://www.facebook.com/TunedIT</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://twitter.com/wojnarski">http://twitter.com/wojnarski</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcinwojnarski">http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcinwojnarski</a>
TunedIT - Online Laboratory for Intelligent Algorithms
</pre>
</body>
</html>