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Google+Madey v. Duke exposed one conflict when industry and universities work in overlapping areas. The 2002 federal court decision highlighted a problem at the intersection of university and industry goals.
open access
Should mandatory open access be extended to all federally funded research?
A consortium of research institutions is lobbying to extend the NIH open-access policy to other federally funded research.
Extending mandatory open access beyond the NIH
The NIH requires free, public access to research they fund. Now the Office of Science and Technology Policy is considering extending the policy to other federal agencies that fund academic research.
Should there be no copyright for academic publications?
Worth reading and considering is a new draft article by Professor Steven Shavell that proposes abolishing copyright on academic works.
New law journal launches that focuses on open source
There’s a new law journal in town: “The International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSS L. Rev.) is a collaborative legal publication aiming to increase knowledge and understanding among lawyers about Free and Open Source Software issues. Topics covered include copyright, licence implementation, licence interpretation, software patents, open standards, case law and statutory changes.”
Researchers typically forbidden from sharing own work
Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I’ve heard similar … Continued
Disruption and change in publishing
Michael Nielsen wrote a stellar piece dealing with disruptive changes that doom old business models: newspapers and science publishers, to mention his examples. He does a particularly good job at explaining how this could happen even without anyone doing anything wrong or stupid.
Texas effectively denies open access to state law
A recent change to the Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure gives “memorandum” opinions full precedential value – but those opinions are currently only accessible through the very expensive Westlaw or LexisNexis.
10 Alternative Legal Research Sites
Looking for alternatives to expensive legal research through Westlaw and LexisNexis? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ten alternative sources for legal research (aimed primarily at lawyers and law students) that are useful – and much cheaper.
Are Westlaw and LexisNexis simply selling "free" information?
Image by mattlary via Flickr Minneapolis News – Westlaw rises to legal publishing fame by selling free information: West makes its money by selling free, public information – specifically, court documents – to lawyers. On this simple model, the company … Continued
NIH Open Access Continues to be Attacked
Image via Wikipedia Marketplace: Publicly funded research for a price: Publicly funded research doesn’t seem so public when the public has to pay to read the results in a journal. A proposed law would help publishing companies preserve their business … Continued
Information as Property from the Scholarly Kitchen
I found this interesting discussion of IP today: Information, however, has properties that make it sufficiently different from physical objects to question whether the property model is a good metaphor for information. Unlike natural resources, information is non-depletable. Overuse of … Continued
Open-access policy flourishes at NIH
Image via Wikipedia Open-access policy flourishes at NIH : Nature News: One year on, advocates of free public access to scientific literature are calling a law that requires researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make their … Continued
Law Librarians, Schools Propose Bold Move to Digital, Open Access Alternative
Law Librarians, Schools Propose Bold Move to Digital, Open Access Alternative – Library Journal In a broad call to action, a group of the nations’ law schools and law librarians have signed the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal … Continued
Legal Scholarship, Electronic Publishing, and Open Access
Image via Wikipedia SSRN-Legal Scholarship, Electronic Publishing, and Open Access: Transformation or Steadfast Stagnation? by Stephanie Plotin: Abstract: This article uses a social shaping of technology perspective, which studies the complex interactions between technology and the culture of a discipline, … Continued
Another Attempt to Repeal Open Access
Peter Suber writes: Yesterday Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act. . . . The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law. The premise … Continued
