I contend that almost all images in scientific publications should not be copyrightable by any publisher and should be stamped as Open Data by the author. To give an idea I have extracted some images from BMC journals (which I can do without permission as BMC is a CC-BY publisher). I’d like to know if anyone thinks any of the following should be copyrightable.
Remember that an image copyrighted by a publisher requires explicit permission (e.g. emails and often the payment of money). Do any of these deserve that? [Note: omitting images] ...
These are very beautiful images, but they are raw data and absolutely essential to communicate the science and should not be copyrighted. ...
Comment. It's not an idle question. Recall the case of Shelley Batts, a science blogger who reproduced a graph from a Wiley-published journal and was in turn threatened by Wiley with a claim of copyright infringement.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 5/18/2009 07:15:00 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.
