Re: MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement

[Jan Velterop <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

Joe,

Of course you may quibble. The point of this list is discussion, 
after all. Thanks for the correction. I realise I used a wrong 
term (quite apart from the religious connotations of 'limbo', 
which I had never heard of until I came to live in the UK, even 
though I, too, was raised a catholic - for me it used to mean a 
low dance, bending over backwards under a horizontal pole). I 
should have used 'open access limbo' instead of 'legal limbo'.

Sandy's question was about the value of a CC licence to the 
author. Well, taking an article unequivocally out of 'open access 
limbo' and ensuring that it will be recognised as open access is 
a value to the author, no? Whenever I write article, I do see 
that as a value to me, in any case. If CC licences didn't have a 
value to authors (creators in general), it simply wouldn't be 
used. Or is that too Darwinian an assumption?

Jan Velterop

PS. I also stand corrected on the moral rights issue. Thanks, 
John Cox, for the clarification. It has to do with legislation in 
particular countries; not with the distinction between Roman Law 
and Common Law. See John's posting.


On 25 Aug 2008, at 23:28, Joseph J. Esposito wrote:

> Jan,
>
> A quibble, if I may.  The copyright status you describe is really
> not one of "legal limbo."  The rights holders hold the rights.
> That's not limbo.  What is unclear (or in limbo--though, having
> been raised as a Catholic, I may have chosen a different term) is
> the information about the legal status. This is a publishing
> matter (getting the correct information out), not a legal one.
> What CC admirably does is provide a framework for the
> dissemination of that information.  CC is a media company.
>
> Sandy's question was about a different matter entirely, the value
> of CC to an author.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jan Velterop" <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 7:23 PM
> Subject: Re: MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement
>
>> Sandy,
>>
>> It is not so much that an author retains 'value' than that it is
>> a way to deal with the legal construct that copyright is.
>> Copyright is granted automatically to an author. Only the
>> copyright holder can license, or even assign to the public
>> domain, a copyrighted work. Not attaching a CC or similar licence
>> to a work always keeps it in legal limbo, as the user can never
>> be sure if (the monopoly granted by) copyright will be asserted
>> at any point. This may not matter much for blog postings or list
>> contributions such as this, but it may matter a lot for formal
>> scientific articles.
>>
>> As for moral rights, they are secured in most European countries
>> (i.e. the 'Roman Law' countries) as you say. However, they are
>> not, as I understand it, in Common Law (mostly Anglo-Saxon and
>> their ex- colonial) countries. Including the 'European' UK. As
>> science and science publishing are global pursuits, we cannot
>> just rely on European (Roman Law) copyright, I would have
>> thought.
>>
>> I may be wrong, but this is what I've always understood. (If I'm
>> wrong, I hope that list members will correct me).
>>
>> Jan Velterop