Roger Clarke, A Proposal for Open Content Licensing for Research Paper (Pr)ePrints, a preprint, last revised April 15, 2005. Abstract: 'Many academic papers that are to be submitted to refereed conferences and journals have been previously exposed to the author's colleagues. The term 'preprints' has long been used to describe such documents. 'Departmental Working Paper' series were for many years a conventional vehicle for their publication. In the modern world, preprints are frequently transmitted electronically, variously as email attachments and as files available for download over FTP or HTTP. When a preprint is made available electronically, it is likely that the author provides the recipient not only with a copy, but also with a copyright licence. In most cases, however, the licence is only implicit, and the terms of the licence are unclear. This creates the potential for considerable uncertainties, and those uncertainties are of serious concern in the context of tension between for-profit publishers of refereed articles and the research communities that referee and edit them for-gratis, and depend on them for early access to information. This paper briefly reviews the open content and ePrints movements, considers the interests of the various stakeholders, proposes a set of licence terms intended to satisfy the needs of all parties, and concludes that a particular Creative Commons licence-type should be applied to all electronic preprints.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/15/2005 12:12:00 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.
