From the monthly archives: August 2008

E-textbooks: the state of play

On August 29, 2008 By

As the new school year begins there has been lots of reporting about E-textbooks, and the welter of stories offers an opportunity to assess the overall state of play.

This story from Inside Higher Ed outlines some of the “next steps” for E-texts, as well as the “remaining obstacles,” which are substantial. [...]

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The other side of the balance.

On August 26, 2008 By

We are often told that copyright law is supposed to be a balance, offering, on the one hand, the financial incentive to creators that goes with monopoly rights and, on the other hand, sufficient exceptions to those monopoly rights to allow new creators to build on previous work. Without the latter half of this balance, [...]

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“Fixing” Fair Use?

On August 22, 2008 By

Whenever I hear suggestions that fair use should be “fixed,” I am reminded that there are two very different usages of that term. When you get your car fixed, it is returned to the state where it performs as it was meant to do. When you get your dog “fixed,” however, that is not the [...]

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A template for authors’ rights, and a modest proposal

On August 19, 2008 By

The Association of Research Libraries has just released an article written by Ben Grillot, a librarian and law student working as an intern for ARL, that is advertised as a summary of the policies of twelve publishers toward deposit of NIH-funded research articles into PubMed Central. In fact, Grillot’s article has a value [...]

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Updates on NIH Public Access

On August 12, 2008 By

It seems like a good time to collect some of the interesting news items coming out lately about the NIH Public Access Policy, which has now been mandatory for just over 4 months. Most of these items come from Peter Suber’s Open Access News blog, to whom we direct a sweeping tip of the hat.

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More on e-textbooks

On August 9, 2008 By

A few weeks ago I did a post suggesting that universities should look at digital textbooks, both licensed and open access, as a way to help students reduce the cost of higher education. The reauthorization of the Higher Education act, with several provisions related to monitoring of costs, reminds us that lots of eyes [...]

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And advice from up north

On August 6, 2008 By

When I first heard that the Canadian Association of University Teachers had approved an intellectual property advisory for faculty authors encouraging them to retain copyright in their published academic articles (hat tip to Heather Morrison), I was delighted and planned to post an enthusiastic plug for the short document in this space. [...]

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Insights from across the pond

On August 4, 2008 By

One aspect of the international treaties on copyright to which the US is a party has been getting quite a bit of attention recently. The “three-step test” is a provision in the Berne Convention and in the TRIPs (Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property) Agreement that broadly defines the role of limitations and exceptions [...]

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