Bill Thompson, The copyright 'copyfight' is on, BBC News, February 18, 2005. Excerpt: 'This week the Institute for Public Policy Research, the UK think tank, held a meeting on copyright as part of its digital manifesto project, and I went along to listen. It was a fascinating discussion, not so much for what was said but because it revealed the depth of misunderstanding and lack of common ground between the different groups. It also exposed a fundamental philosophical difference that I do not think can ever be resolved. In legal terms, the basic argument is between those who see creative works as just another type of property, with what are increasingly presented as inalienable property rights, and those who see copyright as a deal struck with creative people by the state, one which is intended to benefit both sides. Copyright history supports the second view, but since the mid-1970's there has been increasing legal support for the first. We saw this clearly when a lawyer in the audience expressed his concern about proposed changes to copyright law that would allow blind people to break copy protection and use screen readers on books. He called it "expropriation" - a term used to describe the process of taking people's stuff away from them - and demanded some compensation for rights holders if it were allowed.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/21/2005 03:29:00 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.
