The American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy recently created a slide-rule to help determine if a particular work is copyright protected. Pointing the red arrow to the date of first publication of the work provides information on the copyright status of the work.

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Interesting and thought provoking publication by Edward Lee on user-generated content/Web 2.0 tools and implications for copyright. As noted in the abstract:
“The most significant copyright development of the twenty first century has not arisen through any law enacted by Congress or opinion rendered by the Supreme Court. Instead, it has come from the unorganized, informal practices of [...]

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The World Intellectual Property Organization recently issued a guide titled “Understanding Copyright and Related Rights.” The guide is intended to “provide an introduction for non-specialists or newcomers to the subject of copyright and related rights.”

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Interesting article in the New York Times by Katie Hafner.
Three prominent academic publishers are suing Georgia State University, contending that the school is violating copyright laws.

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There is a wide range of rights that authors can opt to retain or those granted to authors by publishers. Some of these rights include:

• use part of the work as a basis for a future publication
• send copies of the work to colleagues
• comply with the NIH Public Access Policy or other funding agency [...]

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Check out the new chronology of the NIH Public Access Policy to learn more about the implementation of the policy and important developments.  The current policy, enacted in 2005,  calls for voluntary submission of NIH-funded manuscripts to PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of publication but recent developments may change this to mandatory. For more information on how Becker Library can [...]

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WU authors who publish in a BioMed Central journal are entitled to a 15% discount on article processing fees. Among the benefits of publishing in a BioMed Central journal include rapid publication, high visibility, inclusion in PubMed, SCOPUS, Google, and PubMed Central, and no space constraints for your work.  An added benefit for authors is that the [...]

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Nate Anderson’s blog entry in ars technica discusses an interesting article written by John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, who outlines the many instances of copyright violation that occur daily.  Professor Tehranian estimates his liability amounts to over $12 million daily.

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wupubamendment.pdf 
What is the WU Amendment to Publication Agreement? The WU Amendment is a tool to allow authors to retain some rights to their work and is used as an addendum to a publisher’s copyright agreement. The WU Amendment enables authors to reuse their work (the final published version) for research and teaching efforts, allows for deposit [...]

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New resource on copyright intended to “contribute to a broader understanding of the legal aspects of creative works of authorship, including their dissemination and use.” Created by Columbia University. http://keepyourcopyrights.org/about/us

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