The following statement was issued today by The Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd (CLA) and Universities UK (UUK) and the Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP). CLA and Universities UK / SCOP are pleased to announce agreement on a trial licence that allows member universities and colleges of Higher Education (HE) to photocopy and scan extracts from books, journals and magazines, should they wish to participate in the trial. The trial licence represents a significant step in the collective licensing of rights within HE: for the first time institutions can scan under a licence on terms similar to those that currently apply to making photocopies. The new scanning rights will help HE institutions to meet the demand for electronic based learning and teaching material. The rights incorporated in the trial licence will allow designated individuals to create and distribute to students scanned copies of extracts from UK-published books, journals and magazines.
(PS: This may be a "significant step forward" compared to the earlier state of UK law. But it's a small step compared to the use rights needed by scholars, students, and other non-commercial users. Fair-use copying for research and education should not require a license, should not be limited to small excerpts, and should unambiguously extend to digital copies of digital texts.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/18/2005 09:04:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
