Michael Geist, Copyright Law and the Law, a guest post on Slaw, April 24, 2006. Four recommendations to Canadian lawyers on Canadian copyright reform. The fourth:
Open Access. The legal profession's support for CanLII [Canadian Legal Information Institute, an OA portal of Canadian law] points to its recognition of the need to leverage the Internet and new technologies to facilitate greater access to legal materials. While CanLII is a terrific service, it is only a start. The legal profession could focus on the availability of secondary materials, encouraging law reviews and other legal publications to adopt open access licenses. It could adopt the University of Ottawa Law and Technology Journal’s new citation guide, which prominently features citations to freely available primary and secondary sources. On the copyright reform front, it could build on its victory in the CCH case, by promoting a shift from fair dealing to fair use, thereby broadening the copyright balance.
PS: Just one footnote: as Geist's own examples show, OA does not require copyright reform. It's lower-hanging fruit than any kind of copyright reform.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/25/2006 10:45:00 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.
