From: Laura Quilter <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2016 10:04:59 -0500

It's interesting, Sandy, that in each of your examples you speak of
the original creators, while in scholarly publishing it is the
intermediaries.

To be more analogous, you might say,

Are you saying, Kevin, that copyright no longer works for any
industry, or is it just the scholarly publishing industry you want to
see relieved of copyright protection?  Do you believe, say, the recording
industry should just give away their music for free and try to make a living on
concerts, selling t-shirts, etc.? How about trade book publishers, or
publishers of textbooks?  How about art galleries and agents, or film
distributors, etc.?

Because of course, in the case of academic publishing, it is the authors
who have been relieved of copyright "protection", and the authors often
have copyright protection wielded against them.

For instance, the academic author of a textbook with whom I recently
worked who was misled by a major academic publisher into believing
he would be able to publish his work in his own language -- and then
was told that the rights were kept from him "for his own protection."

Or the numerous authors who have had to pay publishers for the
privilege of re-using their own work in various contexts.

----------------------------------
Laura Markstein Quilter / [log in to unmask]
Attorney, Geek, Militant Librarian, Teacher

Copyright and Information Policy Librarian
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
[log in to unmask]

Lecturer, Simmons College, GSLIS
[log in to unmask]



On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 6:24 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 22:54:31 -0600
>
> Are you saying, Kevin, that copyright no longer works for any
> industry, or is it just the scholarly publishing industry you want to
> see relieved of copyright protection?  Do you believe, say, musicians
> should just give away their music for free and try to make a living on
> concerts, selling t-shirts, etc.? How about trade book authors, or
> authors of textbooks?  How about painters or sculptors, or film
> makers, etc.?
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
>
> > From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 10:28:33 +0000
> >
> > It is probably worth remember that the policy of ignoring copyrights
> > granted by foreign governments, which is what SciHub is doing, was
> > also the stance of the American publishing industry throughout the
> > 19th century.  Publishing grew as fast as it did in the U.S. in part
> > because it was able to publish works from abroad without negotiating
> > royalties, since our nation did not recognize rights over foreign IP.
> >
> > Copyright is not a god-given natural right, and we should avoid
> > reifying it.  It is, in fact, a form of economic social engineering
> > design to achieve particular conditions.  When it no longer serves its
> > purpose, it may be time to reconsider our commitment to the copyright
> > regime once again, as a policy decision made for specific historical
> > conditions that no longer obtain.
> >
> > Kevin