[LINK] RFC: A Copright Licence for ePrints

[Roger Clarke]

This will interest linkers who are into digital libraries, especially 
librarians, but will probably make everyone else's eyes glaze ...
________________________________________________________________________

I've been developing a paper on a specific aspect of the open access 
/ eprints movement.

My proposition is that we need a copyright licence for eprints, which 
reflects the needs of all stakeholders.

I'd greatly appreciate feedback on the ideas, and on the specifics of 
copyright law, economics, and stakeholder interests.  It's written by 
a non-lawyer, for non-lawyers;  so the rendition of copyright law is 
of necessity legally imprecise - but it can't afford to be actually 
wrong.

I have in mind submitting the paper to a journal shortly, quite 
possibly First Monday, although any suggestions as to an appropriate 
venue would be appreciated.

Thanks!  ...  Roger


                A Proposal for Open Content Licensing
                   for Research Paper (Pr)ePrints

      http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/PrePrLic.html


Many academic papers that are to be submitted to refereed conferences 
and journals have been previously exposed to the author's colleagues. 
The term 'preprints' has long been used to describe such documents. 
'Departmental Working Paper' series were for many years a 
conventional vehicle for their publication. In the modern world, 
preprints are frequently transmitted electronically, variously as 
email attachments and as files available for download over FTP or 
HTTP.

It is inherent in copyright law that the author provides the 
recipient not only with a copy, but also with a licence. In most 
cases of electronic distribution of preprints, however, the licence 
is only implicit, and the terms of the licence are unclear. This 
creates the potential for considerable uncertainties, and those 
uncertainties are of serious concern in the context of tension 
between for-profit publishers of refereed articles and the research 
communities that referee and edit them for-gratis, and depend on them 
for early access to information.

This paper briefly reviews the open content and ePrints movements, 
considers the interests of the various stakeholders, proposes a set 
of licence terms intended to satisfy the needs of all parties, and 
concludes that a particular Creative Commons licence-type should be 
applied to all electronic preprints.

-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                 Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au            http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, UNSW
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science,  Australian National University