UCSD Electronic Reserve Draws Ire of AAP Lawyers

Sunday, April 17, 2005, 8:16 —by Joe Crawford
This item was posted in Nerdy, San Diego Politics category and has 1 Comment so far.

UCSD’s Library has a system of Electronic Reserves that is drawing legal nastygrams from lawyers for the American Association of Publishers, reports the (subscription only) Chronicle of Higher Education. You can read the text of the story in the archives of the IP list.

In recent months, lawyers for the Association of American Publishers
have sent letters to the university that object to the use of
electronic reserves on the San Diego campus. The publishers say that
the use of electronic reserves is too extensive, violating the “fair
use” doctrine of copyright law and depriving them of sales.

University officials counter that the electronic reserves at San
Diego are well within the bounds of fair use. They worry that the
letters portend a lawsuit.

“They clearly had a lawsuit in mind when they started contacting our
office,” said Mary MacDonald, a lawyer for the university system.
“Their position was that the ‘evidence’ showed that we weren’t
following fair-use guidelines, that this was a national issue, and
that the set of facts gave them a good platform from which to take
legal action.”


Further:

Ms. MacDonald and other system representatives met with the
publishers’ group last November, and then conducted an investigation
of electronic reserves at San Diego. She insisted that the practice
conforms with the principles of fair use.

“I don’t think it would do anything for their cause to sue us, and I
don’t think they would win,” she said. “If they were to sue us, they
could well be making a very big public-relations mistake because our
faculty are world-renowned, and we are the very people who provide
their publishers with things to publish. There is a growing discontent
among UC faculty about prices the publishers are charging, and faculty
are starting to look at other avenues for publication of their work.”

related: /. has this: Free/Open-Access Academic Journals Growing, which leads to this Wired article. And wow: DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals appears to have a boatload of journals available for searching.

Voice Your Opinions. Join Today.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “UCSD Electronic Reserve Draws Ire of AAP Lawyers”

  1. Jill said on Sunday, April 24, 2005, 8:29

    I read this and thought the readers here would want to as well

    RFID, The Perfect Storm

    How the RFID mandate may be the front runner to a biometrics purchasing mandate.

    (PRWEB) April 22, 2005 — RFID The Perfect Storm by James Mata
    We consumers are at a point in life where we will move from the simple task at the market place of purchasing supplies for home, office, motor home or where ever else. We walk into the store and purchase our items, using cash or card to pay for the scanned items, under the UPC (Universal Product Code) system, commonly referred to as the bar-code. It seems simple enough and not threatening to our privacy, right?

    Well, that first step in the times to come is now about to give way to the next step by a system that could later be used not only as a marketing tool, but as a device used by governments to keep track of and control the lives of their citizens. In fact, you might say this Trojan Horse, containing big brother and all of his friends, is knocking at the door right now trying to get a foot in, and it’s very likely that at least 70 percent of consumers worldwide don’t even know it.

    Could it be that if those who are unaware knew what lies at the end of this road, this atrocity could be stopped in it’s tracks? Because of the nature of the beast within, it stands to reason that consumers would not want to allow whats in store to take place.

    Wal-Mart, the “super power” monster store, has found a new direction in how they will run their conglomeration, and have accordingly informed their global supply chain for the purpose of forcing cooperation concerning this new method for all products bought by and for Wal-Mart’s Corporation. Having so mandated, the suppliers complied, firing the shot that is now being heard around the business world: All retail competitors will now have to follow Wal-Mart’s new high-tech lead just to be able to compete.

    The mandate is that all items sold by Wal-Mart will now have a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip implanted in all products they sell.

    What is an RFID?
    Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify individual items. There are several methods of identifying objects using RFID, but the most common is to store a serial number that identifies a product, on a microchip that is attached to an antenna (called an RFID transponder, or an RFID tag).

    Soon, as we see with the bar-code, no one will be able to buy or sell any products without the RFID. This chip will go home with consumers and one day our homes with products containing these RFID chips.

    Why should we be concerned?
    At this time it seems that there is nothing we can do about this Trojan horse banging at the door, but we can and need to learn everything possible about the RFID movement in order to be able to maintain our Constitutional right to privacy.

    Many individuals are apathetic about the RFID chips, chalking it up to technology while not realizing why they should be concerned. How would these individuals feel if their home items were made public knowledge? Anything, from that steamy romance novel sitting on their nightstand to the style and size under pants they wear can be found and monitored.

    Hypothetically speaking, if a vehicle with a RFID transponder were to pull up out side ones home, those inside that vehicle would have electronic access to the entire inventory of the private lives of that houses occupants, and who knows what could take place once that knowledge leaked out, especially into the wrong hands. We have all heard the saying, “keep and honest man honest; this certainly gives us something to think about.

    The RFID market has not stopped here; it will continue to transpire to greater levels beyond our comprehension. There is a RFID chip out now called the Verichip. This chip is implanted into the human body, and may store your Visa Card, bank debit card, and social security and other private information that takes the place of your purse.

    The perfect storm: What will become of the Verichip by means of how we see progress continue to unfold? Will the Verichip soon be required to be placed in all people as the RFID chip will be required for all products marketed?

    Let the buyer be aware.
    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/inktomi231432.php

« Word San Diego Anti-Social
San Diego is Del.icio.us »