[open-bibliography] DOIs and openbiblio

Wed Feb 2 11:50:20 UTC 2011

Peter,
regarding your specific question on whether or not DOIs as identifiers are considered copyright. Like you, I expected that IDF would not make claims of copyright to DOI identifiers. I'm happy to say that I have just confirmed with Norman Paskin, Director of the International DOI Foundation, that IDF does not regard DOI names (identifiers) as copyright and, indeed, encourages their open and widespread use.

Paul

On 2 Feb 2011, at 10:04, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Adrian Pohl <adrian.pohl at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Isabel Holroyd of biab online asked me how the DOI system[1] should be
> assessed in the light of the Principles on Open Bibliographic Data or
> Open Knowledge in general.
> 
> In my opinion, this question isn't that easy to answer because on one
> side DOIs aren't open in the sense that not anybody can provide DOIs
> but on the other side they are open in the sense that anybody can use,
> aggregate and disseminate already published DOIs. And it is this open
> use and reuse of bibliographic data the openbiblio principles adress.
> So, I believe, you can't deduce a recommendation to use or not use
> DOIs from the principles. As I am not that familiar with the DOI
> system, there might be other problems with it - e.g. with long-term
> availibility of a free resolving mechanism or other.
> 
> I think if we regard them as identiers and not resolvable addresses then we have the simpler question of whether identifiers are copyright. ACS regard their CAS identifiers as copyright - this is legal but not community-friendly. 
> 
> The best answer is probably to ask DOI/Crossref. If they say NO, then we don't use them, if they say YES we use them if they say fudge we use them with a take-down. I am fairly optimistic they will say yes.
> 
>  
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> All the best
> Adrian
> 
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier
> 
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> 
> -- 
> 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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Paul Walk
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UKOLN (University of Bath)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
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