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.
Aug 272009
For anyone using any kind of electronic reader — including a regular computer — this addition to Google Books may well prove quite useful: EPUB as a download format.
Worth reading and considering is a new draft article by Professor Steven Shavell that proposes abolishing copyright on academic works.
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.”
Jul 012009
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 stories from other professors I know, but this one is worth reading. Shieber points out [...]
Lawyers are safer than musicians in that distribution of legal knowledge is harder – but nonetheless technology will revolutionize legal services, and law firms that adapt to the ideas behind “free” as a business model will survive and prosper – those that fail to adapt will not.
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.
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 raked in $3.5 billion in revenue last year, placing it on a par, sales-wise, with retail giant [...]
Apr 292009
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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 models, but it would limit public access to the research.
Publishers continue to resist the open-access movement, it [...]
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