Re: OA and copyright -- Andy Gass quote in LJ News Wire

["Michael Carroll" <Carroll@law.villanova.edu>]

>Now, I may not be accurately comprehending Andy Gass's meaning here, but
>it sounds to me like he's saying that for an article to be genuinely Open
>Access, it shouldn't be subject to copyright.  (I can't think of any 
>other way to interpret the phrase "prospective digital use is 
>unlimited.")

Rick,

I'm not answering on Mr. Gass's behalf, but I'm quite sure you are not
accurately comprehending his meaning.  In the eyes of copyright law, all
scholarship is protected expression and the rights in that expression
belong initially to the author.  It is then up to the author to decide how
to exercise those rights.  The traditional choice has been to transfer all
or most of those rights to a publisher in exchange for publication.  The
cumulative effect of that tradition has been to transfer control over
scholarly expression to publishers.  As publishers consolidate, so too
does that control.

The open access publishing model seeks to break that tradition by
encouraging authors to retain copyright and by asking or requiring that
the author grant a generous public license that would permit most uses so
long as the author and journal receive credit.  Under such a license, most
prospective digital uses are permitted.  I take Mr. Gass's position to be
that an article is open access only when the copyright owner has granted a
generous public license that permits nearly all prospective uses.

To learn more about such public licenses and how they have been used, we
have a five-minute flash presentation on the subject, please visit
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/ Otherwise, if you browse the site
www.creativecommons.org you'll get a sense for how this works.

Best,

Michael W. Carroll
Assistant Professor of Law
Villanova University School of Law
299 N. Spring Mill Road
Villanova, PA 19085
610-519-7088 (voice)
610-519-5672 (fax)

See also www.creativecommons.org