[Open-access] Rounded Globe: scholarly essays with a CC license

[Peter Murray-Rust]

I have no immediate comments on the value or otherwise of this project, but
note two areas of confusion - whether deliberate or not

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 5:09 AM, simon cook <simonjohncook at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> A few months back I wrote asking for help and advice on a new Creative
> Commons electronic publishing project. That project is now online:
> http://roundedglobe.com/books.
>

A "new Creative Commons electronic publishing project." has the very strong
implication that this is a project OF Creative Commons. There is nothing on
your website to back this up and as an Advisor on CC I have heard nothing
of it. It seems more likely that this is YOUR project and it uses CC
licences. You are in danger of violating trademark rights by this phrase.

Secondly I argue strongly against the use of "published under a CC licence"
(this is common with many publishers.  CC licences cover many licences
including effectively "all rights reserved". In many cases the phrase is
used to suggest that the publisher is aligned with Open Access principles
such as BOAI. It is not clear what your CC licence/s are, but from reading
the text there seems to be at least CC-BY-NC-ND, which many people conside
a fairly restrictive licence. I am not saying you should or shouldn't use
that licence but you SHOULD identify it on the landing page and remove any
implication that CC supports this project (if it doesn't)

These are very early days. At present we have only one book published. We
> are looking to release one book per month (but need more contributions).
> Our crowd-funding is at present minimal. And our FAQ is only a rough draft.
> Still...
>
>
> P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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