<div dir="ltr">The copyright agreement already exists. It's called CC-BY. Authors needn't invent it, just adopt it.<div><br></div><div>And there is no need or justification for any delay or embargo, whatsoever.</div><div><br></div><div>And "100 years or so of copyright protection" is something scholarly journal-article authors never needed or wanted. It was just foisted on them as a 'value added" they could not refuse. (Rather like "Make America Great Again"...)</div><div><br></div><div>(And now, back to a world where things actually move forward at a less glacial tempo, sometimes... OA could have used a dose of the global warming in which DW does not believe...)<br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 12:08 PM, David Wojick <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dwojick@craigellachie.us" target="_blank">dwojick@craigellachie.us</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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John Willinsky has a fascinating OA proposal, namely that copyright law
be changed to make research articles publicly available after a very
short time. <br><br>
I have written about this proposal in some detail in my Inside Public
Access newsletter, which I have made OA to facilitate discussion. See
below and also at
<a href="http://davidwojick.blogspot.com/2018/03/public-access-limited-copyright.html" target="_blank">
http://davidwojick.blogspot.<wbr>com/2018/03/public-access-<wbr>limited-copyright.html</a>
. Apologies for cross posting but this looks important as a policy
proposal.<br><br>
It seems like a good idea. Given that journal articles are not written
for profit, the authors may not need 100 years or so of copyright
protection.<br><br>
Comments?<br><br>
David<br>
<a href="http://insidepublicaccess.com/" target="_blank">
http://insidepublicaccess.com/<br><br>
<br>
</a><h3><b>Public Access limited copyright?</b></h3>The following is
adapted from the March 15 issue of my
<a href="http://insidepublicaccess.com/" target="_blank">newsletter</a>: "Inside
Public Access"<br><br>
<b>Synopsis</b>: OA guru John Willinsky proposes that we change the
copyright law to embrace public access. It is a big step but it may make
sense.<br><br>
 Canadian scholar and OA guru John Willinsky (now at Stanford) has
written a thought provoking book and
<a href="http://www.slaw.ca/2018/03/09/let-canada-be-first-to-turn-an-open-access-research-policy-into-a-legal-right-to-know/?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email&iid=6d62950ff7b6420580c05d212d85d50f&fl=4&uid=2192321690&nid=244+272699400" target="_blank">
blog article</a>. The basic idea is amazingly simple: If we are going to
make research articles publicly available then we should change the
copyright law to do just that.<br><br>
Here is how Willinsky puts it (speaking just of Canada):<br><br>
"<i>Canada is recognizing that people everywhere have a right to
this body of knowledge that it differs significantly from their right to
other intellectual property (which begins well after the author’s
lifetime).</i>"<br><br>
What is true for Canada is true for America too. In fact the Canadian
government has a public access program that is similar to the US
program.<br><br>
The point is that copyright law gives authors certain rights for a
certain time, that is very long (say 100 years), and the idea here is to
dramatically shorten that time for a specific set of articles, namely
research articles in journals.<br><br>
As Willinsky points out, we are already making a lot of these articles OA
(such as under the US Public Access Program) by funder mandate. Codifying
this existing practice, without the funder limitation, would be easy as
far as legislative drafting is concerned. <br><br>
Getting it passed is another matter, of course, but I can see it having
bipartisan support. The Democrats would like the health care argument for
OA and the Republicans would like the innovation and economic growth
argument. <br>
The key point is that the researcher authors are not writing to make
money. One could even argue that a lifetime+ copyright was misapplied to
them in the first place. We need the present limited embargo period of 12
months to protect the publishing system, but that is all.<br><br>
This idea fits the fundamentals elegantly. That makes it an attractive
policy.<br><br>
In fact Congress has already taken a step in this direction. Public
Access originated in the Executive Branch, but Congress has now
legislated it for the Departments of HHS (think NIH), Education and
Labor. <br><br>
One possible objection is that the 12 month embargo period is too short
for some disciplines. However, the publishers have had five years to
raise this issue formally with the US Public Access agencies and to my
knowledge none has done so. <br><br>
On the other hand, some disciplines are only lightly funded by the Public
Access agencies. In that sense their case has yet to arise and they can
make it in the legislative process. I imagine that if Congress were to
move in the direction of public access copyright there would be a lot of
discussion.<br><br>
Willinsky specifically mentions a Canadian government
<a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2017/12/parliament_to_undertakereviewofthecopyrightact.html" target="_blank">
review</a> of copyright law that is presently getting underway. His book
may even be timed for it. The title of his blog article is <i>Let Canada
Be First to Turn an Open Access Research Policy Into a Legal Right to
Know</i> so this clearly is a policy proposal.<br><br>
How this Parliamentary review proceeds with regard to Willinsky's radical
public access proposal might be worth watching. In any case the US
Congress should consider it.<br><br>
Note that Richard Poynder has a lengthy discussion of, and interview
with, Willinsky here:<br>
<a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-intellectual-properties-of-learning.html" target="_blank">
https://poynder.blogspot.co.<wbr>uk/2018/03/the-intellectual-<wbr>properties-of-learning.html<br>
<br>
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</a></div>
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