The Japanese government is considering a new exception to Japanese copyright law that would allow pharma companies to photocopy journal articles and send them to doctors who ask about the safe and effective use of a drug. STM has filed an objection (November 14, 2007):
...The electronic, physical or other delivery of individual copies of articles and books is an important source of revenue for scholarly publishers....
I haven't seen the original proposal and can only reconstruct it from the STM criticism. But according to the STM, the proposal would
...allow the provision of photocopies of medical articles or other STM material...at no, or limited, compensation....[It] generally assumes that the provision of such photocopies was necessary because those cases involved the lives and bodies of patients, and therefore required prompt measures. Allegedly, the prior seeking of licenses would not be possible without putting the lives and bodies of patients at risk....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/21/2007 03:51:00 PM.
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.
