On 4-Aug-09, at 6:45 AM, S. Harnad wrote:
>
> Aside: This formal side-issue has next to nothing to do with Open
Access and Green Open
> Access Mandates.
>
As interesting as may be these discussions about the subtleties of
copyright law and its application to scholarly activities (and I, for
one, am truly interested in these), I agree that this forum is not
the right place to go further in that direction (or even as far as it
has gone).
Although I remain aware that many things I do on a routine basis may
(or do in fact) infringe copyright, I am perfectly satisfied by the
pragmatic approach suggested by Harnad.
The fact that a few months ago two law professors specialised in
copyright promptly sent me on request copies of those of their
articles to which I didn't have access, seemingly without any second
thought, reassures me in a way. To be true, there was not "request
button" involved, but I wonder what is really different (except the
time it took me to write my request and them to find the file and
write a polite answer - I appreciated the human touch though).
I suggest also to those interested an excellent (and much enjoyable)
paper from John Tehranian, "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and
the Law/Norm Gap", in which he describes a day in the life of a law
professor, during which he infringes copyright 83 times (including
when he sings "Happy Birthday" in a restaurant). Fortunately, the
article is available in OA
http://bit.ly/EDNSA
Have a nice day, even if you will probably infringe copyright before
the sun sets.
Marc Couture
Received on Wed Aug 05 2009 - 02:15:17 BST