scholarly journals Proposals for copyright law and education during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (S1) ◽  
pp. 154-185
Author(s):  
Emily Hudson ◽  
Paul Wragg

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-594
Author(s):  
Emily Hudson ◽  
Paul Wragg

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. OQ35-OA58
Author(s):  
Emily Hudson ◽  
Paul Wragg

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.


2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 1053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel A Yurkowski

The existence, or not, of a public interest defence in the sphere of copyright law has been an issue of contention for many years. Due to the comprehensive statutory fair dealing defences available, only a handful of defendants have sought to rely on this defence, which exists at common law. However, when the defence has been raised, the judges have been unable to reach a consensus on its status, scope and indeed availability as a defence to breach of copyright.This paper analyses the extent to which public interest concerns are addressed in statutory copyright law, and presents arguments in support of extending the common law public interest defence to copyright law. However, any such defence must be limited in its scope and applicability, so as to avoid becoming a "thieves charter".


Author(s):  
Tim Press

This chapter defines copyright as arising whenever a work is created under qualifying conditions. The Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) defines eight types of work that fall under two categories: works that must be original or ‘authorial works’, including literary works, dramatic works, musical works, and artistic works; and works that need not be original or ‘entrepreneurial works’: films, sound recordings, broadcasts, and the typographical arrangement of published editions. Copyright is infringed by copying or communicating the whole or a substantial part of a work—referred to as primary infringement—or by dealing in infringing copies of a work-referred to as secondary infringement. There are some major and many minor defences to copyright infringement including the ‘fair dealing’ defences and the public interest. Many aspects of copyright law have been harmonized by the European Union.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Thomson

OAK was founded in 2011 by a former academic publishing executive and a business software developer who encountered first-hand the challenges facing universities and authors with the growth of open access publishing – both Green and Gold. They set about creating a system that dramatically reduced administration and overcame inefficient workflows for all involved.With the establishment of the 'author pays' scholarly publishing model and the increasing trend for open access mandates from research funders, have infrastructure and resources developed sufficiently to support the additional financial and time pressures that participants now face?Individual researchers, their universities and research funders, and the publishers themselves, all have a part to play in processing and managing individual fees. It appears there is a need from all participants in the industry to make provision to encompass the administration of the publication charges required by many open access publishers. Open Access Key (OAK) is a new global company with an innovative and cost-effective solution which could provide value to all parties involved in these transactions.And in addition to financial management, OAK has been built to deliver a wide range of administrative functionality to the users. For example, OAK can feed repositories with the metadata information collected from each article processed through the platform. Automated workflow again reduces the tasks of the authors and administrators allowing resources to be directed towards research.OAK has been built by Norwegian and Danish technology partners using software that delivers tremendous flexibility. At the same time, the company has created an environment that will enable the sharing of best practice models with its customers. The company's size also speeds up decision-making and reactivity. Within an OAK account, for example, there are 'feedback buttons' to enable users to pass on thoughts, requests and general comments directly to the development team. Prior to rolling out the OAK platform to a new customer, the team spends time discussing the needs within each organisation and engineering the system to meet individual specifications.


Author(s):  
Joost Kollöffel

Academic publishing is a 'need to have' process that is very important in the academic world. This chapter focuses on the business models that were/are/might be used to finance the processes and the innovation in scholarly communication. What sparked the serials crisis? Is Open Access publishing feasible? Why are there predatory publishers? Can scientometrics and altmetrics be made into saleable products? These types of questions are answered in this chapter, where the focus lies on the financial feasibility of the main processes that occur in academic publishing.


Author(s):  
Rosana López-Carreño ◽  
Ángel M. Delgado-Vázquez ◽  
Francisco-Javier Martínez-Méndez

This paper analyses the set of scientific publications in open access, other than journals (monographs, conferences proceedings, teaching materials and grey literature), published by Spanish public universities, studying their volume, documentary typology, level of description and open access policies with the aim of measuring their degree of incorporation and compliance with the principles of Open Science. An exhaustive review of the disposed material in open access by these publishers has been carried out, which has allowed to make a diagnosis of their level of open access publishing. Grey literature is the most common documentary type followed by the monograph, in the open publication of these publishers that does not reach even 5% of the average editorial production. The results allow us to conclude that the academic publishing, and more specifically the academic books in open access, still has a very reduced presence within the editorial production of these institutions. Resumen Este trabajo analiza el conjunto de las publicaciones científicas en acceso abierto, distintas de las revistas científicas (monografías, actas de congresos, materiales didácticos y literatura gris), dispuestas para su consulta por las editoriales universitarias públicas, estudiando su volumen, tipología documental, nivel de descripción y políticas de acceso abierto con el objetivo de medir el grado de incorporación y cumplimiento de los principios de Ciencia Abierta. Se ha llevado a cabo una exhaustiva revisión del material publicado en acceso abierto por estas editoriales que ha permitido establecer un diagnóstico de su nivel de edición en acceso abierto. La literatura gris es el tipo documental más frecuente seguido de la monografía, en la publicación en abierto de las editoriales universitarias que no alcanza ni el 5% de la producción editorial universitaria. Los resultados permiten concluir que la publicación académica, y más concretamente el libro en acceso abierto, sigue teniendo una presencia muy reducida dentro de la producción editorial de estas instituciones.


Author(s):  
Paul Torremans

This chapter discusses defences to copyright infringement. It covers authorization or consent of the owner; public interest; the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Disability) Regulations 2014; the making of temporary copies; fair dealing; incidental inclusion; educational use; exception for libraries, archives, and public administration; the Information Society Directive; and orphan works.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Xiao ◽  
Nicole Askin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine academics’ awareness of and attitudes towards Wikipedia and Open Access journals for academic publishing to better understand the perceived benefits and challenges of these models. Design/methodology/approach – Bases for analysis include comparison of the models, enumeration of their advantages and disadvantages, and investigation of Wikipedia's web structure in terms of potential for academic publishing. A web survey was administered via department-based invitations and listservs. Findings – The survey results show that: Wikipedia has perceived advantages and challenges in comparison to the Open Access model; the academic researchers’ increased familiarity is associated with increased comfort with these models; and the academic researchers’ attitudes towards these models are associated with their familiarity, academic environment, and professional status. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the study is sample size. The result of a power analysis with GPower shows that authors could only detect big effects in this study at statistical power 0.95. The authors call for larger sample studies that look further into this topic. Originality/value – This study contributes to the increasing interest in adjusting methods of creating and disseminating academic knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the academics’ experiences and attitudes towards the Open Access and Wikipedia publishing models. This paper provides a resource for researchers interested in scholarly communication and academic publishing, for research librarians, and for the academic community in general.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Friedman

>> See video of presentation (25 min.)BioMed Central is the open access publisher who pioneered this publishing model and has been part of Springer since 2008. We launched our first journal in the year 2000, and have since seen several positive global developments which have helped establish open access as an important trend in the evolvement of scholarly communication.  We have consequently observed a steady increase in awareness of open access and specifically, of our wide range of specialist as well as broad interest titles which is reflected in our growing submission numbers.BioMed Central as one of the main open access publishers has helped to establish open access as a new way of making academic research available to researchers and the public, and to introduce a change of the subscription business model in academic publishing and libraries. While BioMed Central also offers a solution for the Green Route of open access (“Open Repository”) the main part of our publishing activity is centred around our fully or “gold” open access journals. BioMed Central and SpringerOpen practise the “author pays” model, whereby the author is asked to pay a fee to cover the publisher’s cost of publishing and distributing the article. While the awareness of open access is growing among the academics, there is still uncertainty among many of how open access works and why they are asked to pay a fee. To cover that fee can still be a major obstacle for a researcher attempting to publish an article in an open access journal, as the SOAP report stated in 2011.I will present an analysis of the most recent open access developments and studies globally; as well as the effect that this has had on a number of factors that play a role in scholarly publishing, such as Impact Factors, citations and awareness of open access among academics. I will give an update on BioMed Central and Springer’s own development in the arena of open access and visibility of research, including  experimenting with alternative methods of evaluating research such as Altmetric and the SCImago Journal & Country Rank.  I will conclude with an overview of how we are working with research organisations and universities to offer financial support to their researchers in order to cover the fee for publishing in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals in the context of our institutional membership program.


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