[Open-access] Copyright Law Destroys Markets

Tue Nov 20 15:16:52 UTC 2012

Now the Republican Party has withdrawn the report or at least playing it
down.

Arun

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 3:38 AM, Marcin Wojnarski <
marcin.wojnarski at tunedit.org> wrote:

>  A few days ago, Republicans released a report about flaws of copyright
> law, suggesting revolutionary reforms. Very important initiative for all
> academia. Scholars should speak and strongly back the initiative, to help
> liberate academic literature. You can read a write-up here<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121116/16481921080/house-republicans-copyright-law-destroys-markets-its-time-real-reform.shtml>.
> Some quotes:
>
>    - [about term of protection]* ... Gradually this period began to
>    expand, but today’s copyright law bears almost no resemblance to the
>    constitutional provision that enabled it and the conception of this right
>    by our Founding Fathers.**
>    - Original Copyright Law [AD 1790]: 14 years, plus 14 year renewal if
>    author is alive.
>    - Current Copyright Law: Life of author plus 70 years; and for
>    corporate authors 120 years after creation or 95 years after
>    publication.
>
>    *
>    - *copyright continue to be extended perpetually, ensuring that works
>    never actually enter the public domain (...) that would effectively
>    nullify Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution which
>    provides protection only for “limited times.”
>
>    *
>    - *[copyright] penalizes legitimate journalism and oversight (...)
>    Current copyright law allows for producers of written materials, such as
>    memos or other documents, to claim copyright when they are seeking to hide
>    incriminating information.
>
>    *
>    - *Because there is minimal or nearly non-existent punishment for
>    bogus copyright claims today, false takedown requests are common and have a
>    chilling effect upon legitimate speech.** (...) This often leads to de
>    facto censorship.
>
>    *
>    - *Current copyright law does not merely distort some markets – rather
>    it destroys entire markets.
>
>    *
>    - [from Infringement Nation] *things you do every single day are
>    infringing and leave every single person liable for billions in damageseach year
>    *
>
> (emphasis mine)
> There's a separate section on academic literature. Quoting in full:
>
> *B. Hampering scientific inquiry:*
> Scientific papers from the early portion of the 20th century are still
> under copyright. . .
> This is illogical, as the purpose of most scientific papers is to further
> intellectual
> inquiry, and the goal of most authors of scientific papers is to advance
> their field and
> to be cited in other publications. Many professors are assessed upon the
> number of
> citations for their major works. For these reasons, keeping their work in
> what are
> effectively locked vaults defeats the purpose of much of their work.
> Obviously these producers need to be compensated to justify the cost of
> their
> research, but after around 14 years, most, if not nearly all, of the
> earning capacity of
> their work has been exhausted, and at that point the overriding interest
> is in ensuring
> that these works are available for others. While there are exceptions in
> the law for the
> use of this material for good faith exceptions, there are numerous
> examples where
> for-profit entities want to use published journal articles but are unable
> to do so
> without negotiating a payment to the producer of the content.
> If however, these older papers were available online for free on Google
> Scholar to
> anyone to access and use after a reasonable period of time then it would
> greatly
> increase the availability and utilization of scientific analysis.
>
>
> --
> Marcin Wojnarski, Founder and CEO, TunedIThttp://tunedit.orghttp://www.facebook.com/TunedIThttp://twitter.com/wojnarskihttp://www.linkedin.com/in/marcinwojnarski
>
> TunedIT - Online Laboratory for Intelligent Algorithms
>
>
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