Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, November 07, 2008

Report on copyright and schol. comm. conference

Kim Plummer, Conference Discusses Copyright Laws, The New Paltz Oracle, November 6, 2008.

A conference entitled Intellectual Property and Copyright in the Academy was held on Friday, Oct. 24 [at New Paltz, USA]. The aim of the conference was to better educate and inform students, faculty and community members on copyright laws and how they affect scholarly communication. ...

Kenneth Crews, Director of the Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University, opened the conference with an in-depth power-point presentation, “Get the Big Picture of How Copyright Works.” ...

Michael W. Carroll, visiting professor of law at American University, followed with a presentation regarding the changing information environment created by the Internet and how it affects research by students and professors. “Open Access and You: The Future of Scholarly Communication,” was a presentation that spoke to the current state of scholarly information.

Carroll, an advocate of open access, believes that by selling [sic] publishing rights to journals, the lines of scholarly communication close. Open access to information is scholarly content, free of charge, and free of the licensing restrictions of most copyright law.

Carroll encouraged all scholarly writers to think before signing publishing forms. He said that open access is more rewarding because it has a more significant impact since the information is readily available to everyone and no one needs to subscribe to expensive journals to see your information. ...