Re: MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Jan,

A quibble, if I may.  The copyright status you describe is really 
not one of "legal limbo."  The rights holders hold the rights. 
That's not limbo.  What is unclear (or in limbo--though, having 
been raised as a Catholic, I may have chosen a different term) is 
the information about the legal status. This is a publishing 
matter (getting the correct information out), not a legal one. 
What CC admirably does is provide a framework for the 
dissemination of that information.  CC is a media company.

Sandy's question was about a different matter entirely, the value 
of CC to an author.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Velterop" <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement

> Sandy,
>
> It is not so much that an author retains 'value' than that it is
> a way to deal with the legal construct that copyright is.
> Copyright is granted automatically to an author. Only the
> copyright holder can license, or even assign to the public
> domain, a copyrighted work. Not attaching a CC or similar licence
> to a work always keeps it in legal limbo, as the user can never
> be sure if (the monopoly granted by) copyright will be asserted
> at any point. This may not matter much for blog postings or list
> contributions such as this, but it may matter a lot for formal
> scientific articles.
>
> As for moral rights, they are secured in most European countries
> (i.e. the 'Roman Law' countries) as you say. However, they are
> not, as I understand it, in Common Law (mostly Anglo-Saxon and
> their ex- colonial) countries. Including the 'European' UK. As
> science and science publishing are global pursuits, we cannot
> just rely on European (Roman Law) copyright, I would have
> thought.
>
> I may be wrong, but this is what I've always understood. (If I'm
> wrong, I hope that list members will correct me).
>
> Jan Velterop