...[S]ince the people who will make money from orphaned works [under the settlement] are precisely not the people who created or published the works —by definition, those people cannot be found— I like the idea of shunting some of that money into a fund to help increase open access to all the works of our culture. The settlement does talk about donating unclaimed funds to non-profits "that advance literacy, freedom of expression, and/or education," but makes no commitment to the amounts, and does not directly name open access. This should be a requirement, not an afterthought....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/01/2009 12:07:00 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.