On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Rainer Stumpe wrote: > ...the UK Copyright Act explicitly states: > > (4) Where in any proceedings the question arises whether an article is an > infringing copy and it is shown- > > (a) that the article is a copy of the work, and > > (b) that copyright subsists in the work or has subsisted at any time, > it shall be presumed until the contrary is proved that the article was made > at a time when copyright subsisted in the work....
End of story. In the case of the public self-archiving of the unrefereed preprint prior to transfer of copyright, the contrary is indeed proved, an infinite number of times, in perpetuo. > ........ > (6) In this Part "infringing copy" includes a copy falling to be treated as > an infringing copy by virtue of any of the following provisions- > ...... > section 56(2) (further copies, adaptations, &c. of work in electronic form > retained on transfer of principal copy),..... On the internet, in the specific, anomalous, minoritarian case in question (let us focus on it, to keep the issue from getting blurred), the "further copies" are in reality "prior copies," because the cat has been let irretrievably out of the bag (the Pandora's box has been opened, the text has seeped into the aether) by public self-archiving PRIOR to transfer of copyright. How was this possible? Because in this one anomalous special case (most of the literature is NOT an author give-away), the text's author can and does elect to make it possible. (No sane author would do this with a potential best-seller! Harnad, S., Varian, H. & Parks, R. (2000) Academic publishing in the online era: What Will Be For-Fee And What Will Be For-Free? Culture Machine 2 (Online Journal) http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Varian/new1.htm http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j002/Articles/art_harn.htm "The world produces between 1 and 2 exabytes of unique information per year" http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/summary.html A little reflection will remind us that copyright law was never conceived or intended for this anomalous, nonrepresentative minority consisting of give-away texts. It was conceived and intended for the the majority, non-give-away texts, those for which their authors (in collaboration with their publishers) wish to make MONEY (through royalties, fees or salary) in exchange for the product: 5. PostGutenberg Copyright Concerns http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#5 > My point is: publishers do not need to own exclusive rights in > (scientific/scholarly) publications, if the author promises not to > commercially exploit his work otherwise. Yes, transfering copyright nonexclusively (i.e. retaining the online giveaway rights for the author) will indeed solve the minor problem of the legal status of the final ("value-added") refereed postprint; but, it is for those cases where the publisher may be disinclined to agree to nonexclusivity that the Pre-Archived Preprint Gambit was designed, and it covers all cases: 6. How to get around restrictive copyright legally http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#Harnad/Oppenheim Stevan Harnad har...@cogsci.soton.ac.uk Professor of Cognitive Science har...@princeton.edu Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582 Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865 University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/ Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/ SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html You may join the list at the amsci site. Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org