SAN FRANCISCO — The UCSF Academic Senate has voted to make electronic versions of their current and future scientific articles freely available to the public, helping to reverse decades of practice on the part of medical and scientific journal publishers to restrict access to research results.
(from the UC Newsroom site)
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So, how does access to scientific articles by UCSF researchers relate to copyright issues in ANR?
Well, many of you have commented that work that you or your UC colleagues have done has shown up in other places, sometimes with an accurate citation and sometimes not.
Others of you have commented that exercising copyright for our work goes counter to our mission and that everything should be in the public domain.
Over the past year, my thinking on these issues has changed.
I'm beginning to think that the best way to protect copyright and identify your work in the future may be open access publishing. Counterintuitively, the key to protecting your work may be discoverablility. In this case, discovery means consistent branded content that is easily and consistently found and indexed by search engines.
Some of our information will be duplicated and used without permission. Maintaining ownership and copyright may become more about where online search can take you and building official scholarly and program material repositiories.
Bob
Posts Tagged: copyright
Stanford University's Fair Use Site
Stanford University has an excellent website on fair use that includes links to resources on copyright issues and new outlets such as blogging and social media.
There is also a digest of recent court decisions relevant to copyright and fair use that offer insight into the issues and precedents being set in this area.
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/index.html
Bob Sams
Recent news about
Some of you may remember a flurry of news awhile ago about UCLA and Georgia getting in trouble with some major copyright holders about creating "e-reserves" in library computer systems for student use for classes.
Here's a link to an article in Academic Impressions that reports on court decisions settling those lawsuits and setting specific limits for the substantiality test for fair use. Turns out those limits are one chapter or 10%.
http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/copyright-fair-use-and-electronic-materials-three-tips-0
I have an earlier post in this blog on the 4 factors test for fair use.
Bob
UCSF senate votes for open access
Fair Use - The Four Factors Test
Periodically, I get asked about the use of text and/or graphics from journal articles or other copyrighted sources in presentations. Lately, with the use of web conferencing and virtual meetings increasing rapidly, it's an excellent question to revisit.
http://copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Let's be clear from the start. There is no simple rule that covers fair use and it is important to evaluate every use. It isn't difficult or time consuming, at least most of the time. In the cases where it isn't clear, email me and I'll do my best to help.
So, what are the four factors?
Section 107 of the copyright law sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the
copyrighted work.
Purpose and character - In most of our uses, the intention is educational and non-profit, but that isn't, by itself, enough.
Nature of the work - Is it appropriate? Running a copyrighted feature movie at an extension educational meeting is not covered fair use. Citing journals including text and graphics relevant to the educational goal is fair use.
Amount - This isn't always clear. Is 10% substantial? It might be. If it's 10 seconds of a short video, 10% might be fine. Ten percent of War and Peace is not fair use.
Monetary impact- If your contemplated use could have an economic impact on the copyright holder, get permission. Put yourself in the copyright holder's position.
No single factor is sufficient to insure that any given use is protected under fair use. If your use passes all 4 factors, you can be reasonably confident it's okay to proceed.
As for web conferences or virtual meetings, the four factors test still applies.
As always, when in doubt, get permission. Feel free to contact me with questions. I'm not an attorney and I've never played one on TV, but I'll do my best to point you in the right direction or get in touch with the right person.
Bob
Developments in Fair Use
Recently, a Federal court issued a ruling on suit brought by a number of major publishers against Georgia State University claiming that their "e-Reserves" system violated copyright laws. While the suit is not final and the publishers are said to be considering appeal, the initial rulings suggest an easing of the narrowest interpretations of Fair Use and ongoing support for the educational uses of copyrighted content.
However!!!!
These rulings also point to a clear and formal responsibility on the part of the user to evaluate each use on its own merits and on a number of factors.
Fortunately, anything that provides clearer boundaries makes it easier to judge a specific case and it also points to tools that can assist you in a specific situation.
A number of institutions have developed a "Fair Use Checklist" and the existence of such a tool in the Georgia case was cited in the decision.
There are many, but here's one that popped out close to the top of a recent Google search;
http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/files/2009/10/fairusechecklist.pdf
There are others that are very similar.
Stay tuned. We'll try and get something similar for our needs posted to Communication Services web site soon.
Don't forget....when in doubt, ask permission.
Bob Sams