From: "Ronnie Brown" <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com> To: "jim stasheff" <jds@math.upenn.edu> Subject: Fw: copyright etc Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 17:05:54 -0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi Jim,=20 perhaps you should do it for the catlist as the bill is a USA congress = issue.=20 But as the email below says, I am urging its discussion here in the THES = and by CASE (Campaign for Science & Engineering); and Steve Harnard = thinks the response to the proposal has been too shrill!=20 It is a good thing to stir things up!=20 Ronnie ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Stevan Harnad=20 To: Richard Poynder=20 Cc: Ronnie Brown ; Nick Hall=20 Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 4:40 PM Subject: Re: copyright etc On 7-Mar-09, at 10:34 AM, Richard Poynder wrote: Hi Ronnie, I am copying in Stevan Harnad as he may know whether anyone at the = THES is looking at this. =20 In the meantime these two links may be of interest: = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig-and-michael-eisen/is-john-c= onyers-shilling_b_171189.html = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-conyers/a-reply-to-larry-lessig_b_1726= 42.html At least Larry Lessig appears to have stung Conyers into responding. Hi Richard, It would certainly be a good idea if THES did a critical article on the = Conyers Bill's attempt to overturn the NIH self-archiving mandate. But I think the letter you attached is a bit too shrill and not = sufficiently well informed to hit the mark and help: "Any bets that the = next step would be defunding arXiv?" The Conyers Bill is about not = allowing NIH to require self-archiving. It has nothing to do with the = spontaneous self-archiving that has been going on in Arxiv and elsewhere = for nearly two decades. Tim Farley's well-meaning piece in Discover Magazine's Bad Astronomy = Blog is also too over the top to be taken seriously: "Conyers wants science to be secret or you will pay." (Secret? Published = journal articles, secret? Even if you have to pay to read them, what has = that to do with being secret?) "...pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open = access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals." Ban open access? Forcing scientists to publish journal articles is = journals? This kind of scattershot rhetoric does not help any cause, only its = detractors. I've responded to both Larry Lessig's critique and John Conyer's reply, = by the way. Lawrence Lessig's Critique of the Conyers Bill (H.R. 201) to Overturn = the NIH OA Mandate Rep. John Conyers Explains his Bill H.R. 801 in the Huffington Post Chrs, Stevan Cheers, Richard From: Ronnie Brown [mailto:ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com]=20 Sent: 07 March 2009 15:25 To: richard.poynder@btinternet.com Cc: Nick Hall Subject: Re: copyright etc Hi Richard, Thanks. I just got the attached. It seems to need public discussion! E.g. in = the THES? Can you initiate that? Are there any lengths to which these top publishers will not go to = preserve their cosy domain, battening on the hard work of academics? Ronnie www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard Poynder To: 'Ronnie Brown' Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 2:15 PM Subject: RE: copyright etc Hi Ronnie, Thanks for these links. Yes, these are the kind of issues that = interest me. And I have done a series of interviews discussing these = sort of topics. http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/Poynder1.htm They recently started to hit the syllabus of some US library arts = colleges e.g. Oberlin. http://www.steword.net/oberlin/soci220/syllabus.html Click on show details under "Intellectual Property & the Web of = Human Creativity" Cheers, Richard From: Ronnie Brown [mailto:ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com]=20 Sent: 04 March 2009 20:32 To: Richard Poynder Subject: copyright etc Richard, As a result of listening to Laurie Taylor this afternoon I came = across the following and perhaps they are relevant to your concerns. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b46f5a58-aa2e-11db-83b0-0000779e2340.html http://www.thepublicdomain.org/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Best regards Ronnie