Do public interest groups have a right to link to illegally obtained corporate memos? Do ISP's have a right to host pages containing such links? Is the company's copyright claim controlling even when the public interest is strong (in this case, exposing large security flaws in the manufacture of voting machines)? We may find out now that the EFF has decided to defend the linkers (Independent Media Center) and ISP (Online Policy Group) against the infringement claim by the corporation (Diebold). For more details, see the EFF press release and a campaign to support the linkers through electronic civil disobedience.
(PS: It used to be the case that the press had a right to publish whatever it got its hands on. If leaking or theft are crimes, then only the leaker or thief could be punished, not the publisher of the leaked or stolen material. See e.g. Justice Marshall's concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case. Did the New York Times win that case only because government documents are not copyrightable? If that case held, among other things, that publishing illegally obtained documents is protected by the First Amendment, then can linking to such documents be unprotected? If the President's claim of national security didn't prevail against the First Amendment in that case, will a corporation's claim of copyright infringement do so in this one? Did the DMCA change this fundamental right of the press, and if it did, will the statute take priority over settled constitutional law?)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/22/2003 06:54:00 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.
