Re: BioMed Central Authors to retain copyright

["jlogburn" <jlogburn@u.washington.edu>]

As one who has been plagiarized, let me assure you there are more than
economic reasons to be concerned about having copyright for your work. You
might not think it could happen to you, but it can and it is a very
unpleasant and unsettling experience. The remedies in this situation are
based on having the copyright.

Joyce L. Ogburn
Associate Director of the Libraries
Resources and Collection Management Services
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
phone:206-685-2889
fax:206-685-8727
jlogburn@u.washington.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Anderson" <Rick_Anderson@uncg.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 2:59 PM
Subject: Re: BioMed Central Authors to retain copyright


> (Sorry for the delay in follow-up -- I was on vacation all last week. But
> I think Trisha poses an important question here and no one else seems to
> have picked it up, so...)
>
> > Why don't folks understand the basics of
> > copyright law?  Would they want their research free to all without
> > barriers?
>
> I've asked myself this many times when reading the comments of librarians
> and others on copyright topics.  I think part of the problem is that the
> answer is "yes" -- many librarians and academics would be happy to have
> their research available to all without barriers, because there's no
> economic downside to it for them.  As a professional, tenure-seeking
> librarian, I get paid to write stuff on the job, so my copyright isn't
> worth that much to me; in fact, I benefit professionally if my writing is
> widely distributed and read.  And because the wide dissemination of
> information is essential to participative democracy, we all tend to get
> irritated by arguments in favor of information "ownership." The problem is
> that lots of people actually rely on copyright protection in order to make
> a living, and those people (rather than librarians and academics) tend to
> be the ones who write the stuff that library patrons really need.  I worry
> when I hear librarians talking about how information ought to be "free."
> It's not free.  It's expensive to create and expensive to publish, and
> we're dumb to pretend otherwise.  If we work to undermine the strength of
> copyright protection, we're undermining the ability of people to make a
> living creating and publishing information.
>
> This all strikes me (and probably most people reading this message) as
> incredibly obvious.  And yet so much of the commentary from our colleagues
> seems to be written as if it weren't.
>
> --------
> Rick Anderson
> Head Acquisitions Librarian
> Jackson Library
> UNC Greensboro
> (336) 334-5281
> rick_anderson@uncg.edu