Intellectual Property UCLA DIS “Information Ecology” C.Hoda,Fall 2008

Intellectual Property: Copyright, the Public Domain, Fair Use, Orphan Works, and Scholarly Publishing Intellectual Property CopyrightPatentsTrademarks

In the Context of Scholarly Publishing: Copyright The Public Domain Fair Use Orphan Works The Information Commons Digital Rights Management

Copyright: Brief History Created originally to promote human progress by making information widely available. The requirements for obtaining copyright, the range of legal protections, and the length of term have changed substantially in the last hundred years as we shall see…

Copyright: Brief History The U.S. Copyright Act of 1909 required publication for copyright protection. Until 1978, it was necessary to place a copyright notice on a document to obtain copyright protection. Since 1978, copyright “immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work…from the time the work is created in fixed form,” be it in a print or digital form (Copyright Circular, 2000). Today copyright protection covers “original works of authorship,” including “literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works” (Copyright Circular, 2000).

Today the copyright owners have The exclusive right to do and authorize others to do the following: To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; To prepare derivative works based on the work; To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works; To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, and In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission (Copyright Circular 2000).

Copyright versus the Public Domain The Public Domain: Information not covered by copyright, usually because they are so old that the copyright has expired or they are types of materials that cannot be copyrighted. The pre-1978 requirement to attach copyright notice resulted in about 95% of all written materials becoming part of the public domain. Under current law, a copyright extends 70 years after the author’s death and even longer for some. Copyright The Public Domain

Copyright versus the Public Domain Case Study 1: John Wilbanks studied the effects of copyright licenses on scientific publications. He claims that with an increasing pool of scientific data, most scientists are now simply drowned in data. He concludes that copyright licenses severely limit the integration of scientific data, thereby hindering scientific progress as a whole.

Copyright versus the Public Domain Case Study 2: Europe adopted the Database Directive in 1996, giving extensive copyright protections to information in databases. Similar laws were also proposed in the U.S., but failed to pass in legislation. James Boyle (2004) compared the European and U.S. database industries to determine whether the European laws resulted in the projected economic benefits. Based on several comparisons, Boyle concluded that the European policy created more harm than good.

Fair Use Fair Use: Lawful use of copyrighted materials. Copyright Act (2000) states, “Use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” Four conditions must be examined in determining whether a use is infringing or fair: 1) The purpose and character of use. 2) The nature of copyrighted work. 3) The proportion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. 4) The effect of the use on the potential market for the copyrighted work.

Orphan Works Orphan Works: Works for which copyright owners cannot be identified and/or contacted to obtain permission for use. In many cases, it is assumed that if copyright owners could be found, they would be pleased with the visibility provided by using their work in scholarly publications, textbooks, or course packs Potential

Scholarly Publishing Business Information is not a commodity unlike a piece of land, which makes it hard to price. The first copy is expensive and subsequent reproduction and distribution are relatively inexpensive. New business models for publishing scholarly books online is emerging. Costs are even harder to determine for electronic publishing.

Business Models for Book Publishing Business models for future book publishing may take the form of Netflix. Libraries and individuals could subscribe to digital books, and have access to a fixed number of titles at a time for a fixed period of time. LibraryNetflix Digital book rental Service

Works Cited Borgman, Christine L. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. Cambridge: MIT Press, Wikipedia. Wilbanks, J (2008). “Public Domain, Copyright Licenses and the Freedom to Integrate Science.” Journal of Science Communication 7.2. Oct. 10, 2008.