Re: copyright ? display of crystal structures from atomiccoordinates
"Rzepa, Henry" <h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk> 29/06/2000 10:33:20 >>> ...I cannot bring myself to believe that if say Chapman and Hall wish to produce a Dictionary of Organic Compounds in which they cite a melting point, they have to seek permission from every original author of the article which cites it.
Neither can I, so there must be something in what you say. But most original authors don't own the copyright - as you should know, they sign it away to the publisher on the copyright transfer form they sign for every paper. The journal publisher usually holds copyright in published work, not the original author. I was sufficiently puzzled by all this that I checked with our copyright person (the librarian), and they looked into it in case it ever bit us. I got this back, quoting from Charles Oppenheim, who our librarian reckons is a copyright guru: "individual facts are not copyright, but collections, such as in spectral lists, enjoy database right and often have copyright as well. The ground rules are quite complex, but a typical spectral collection will enjoy both copyright and database right. This means you can reproduce small insubstantial amounts - a single figure or a very small number of them - without trouble, but anything more and you should obtain a licence. If the material appeared in a journal, you should approach the journal publisher in the first instance. .... basically err on the side of caution.." Hope that helps; it's the nearest I'm going to get to a legal opinion on hte case. Er, can you guys out there please treat the above carefully, as I haven't yet got the man's permission to quote him.... chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
"Rzepa, Henry" <h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk> 29/06/2000 10:33:20 >>> ...I cannot bring myself to believe that if say Chapman and Hall wish to produce a Dictionary of Organic Compounds in which they cite a melting point, they have to seek permission from every original author of the article which cites it.
Neither can I, so there must be something in what you say. But most original authors don't own the copyright - as you should know, they sign it away to the publisher on the copyright transfer form they sign for every paper. The journal publisher usually holds copyright in published work, not the original author.
An interesting point given that, so far as I know, many academic authors are not actually authorised by their employers to sign that copyright away in the first place. It's also interesting that, when the work is publicly funded, that the work is given away to the journal for nothing, who then charge the public for reading about the work sponsored by the public in the first place. But I digress. -- Dr Mark J Winter (Director of Studies) Department of Chemistry, The University, Sheffield S3 7HF, England tel: +44 (0)114 222 9304 fax: +44 (0)114 222 9303 e-m: mark.winter@sheffield.ac.uk http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/staff/mjw/mark-winter.html WebElements is the periodic table on the world-wide web: http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements/ or http://www.webelements.com/ The Sheffield Chemdex is a listing of chemistry sites on the world-wide web: http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/chemdex/ or http://www.chemdex.org/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
participants (2)
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Mark Winter
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Steve Ellison