Lawrence Lessig and Open Access

["William Walsh" <libwdw@langate.gsu.edu>]

>From his blog <http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002780.shtml>. Of
possible interest:

"So I did something today for the very last time in my life. I'm
publishing a comment in the Minnesota Law Review about an article by Brett
Frischmann titled "An Economic Theory of Infrastructure." His is a great
article; I was happy to write the comment.

"But today, on the brink of publication, I had to confront the
"Publication Agreement." In order to give the Minnesota Law Review my
work, I have also to give them my copyright. In particular, they get the
"exclusive right to authorize the publication, reproduction, and
distribution" of my work. They have in turn sold that right to Lexis and
Westlaw.

"Never again. It has taken me too long to resolve myself about this, and
it was too late in the process of this article to insist on something
different. But from this moment on, I am committed to the Open Access
pledge:

"I will not agree to publish in any academic journal that does not permit
me the freedoms of at least a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
license.

"This is, of course, much less than RMS insists upon. My views are more
confused than his. I am not yet convinced of this point w/r/t books. I am
not yet convinced w/r/t eliminating the non-commercial restriction. But,
still, there is no academic or scholarship related reason why the
publishing of academic works today should require more of me than this.
And to the extent academic publishing demands more of me than this, I will
not support it.

"At this point, I know of one law journal that may, soon, be able to
publish my work. I hope there will be more. But until there are, there
will be no more law review articles by Lawrence Lessig - a relief to many,
no doubt; a loss to none, to be sure."

Bill

William Walsh
Head, Acquisitions Department
Georgia State University Library
100 Decatur Street, SE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404.651.2149
Fax: 404.651.2148
Email:  wwalsh@gsu.edu