Re: MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

But can't an author simply dedicate a work to the public domain 
without using a license by accompanying the article with such a 
notice, just the way many people do with a copyright notice? I 
still fail to see what the "value added" of a CC license is, at 
least in countries where "moral rights" already ensure the right 
of attribution. It seems to me that this sort of CC license is 
superfluous, unless one has special reasons for associating 
oneself with the CC "brand" name.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>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.