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Copyright on Information
Prof. Peter Saunders
The increasing use of digitally held data is changing publishing and
raising new problems about copyright. Electronic journals and databases do
not incur the costs of printing, packaging and mailing, but they still
cost money to produce and maintain. The challenge is to develop a system
of paying these costs which provides sufficient and incentive for the
providers without being onerous for the users. This is particularly an
issue in science because the users, the scientific community, are
generally also the ultimate providers of the information. Very few of the
originators of the material receive any payment at all, whatever the
copyright warning on your photocopier may say.
The European Union has already taken significant steps to deal with this
problem, though you may not be aware of them as they don’t seem to
have attracted much attention outside the world of publishing. The 1996
Database Directive created a new kind of intellectual property right in
collections of data which would not otherwise be subject to copyright, and
it did so without making provision for "fair use" in research.
Unlike other forms of copyright, this can be renewed indefinitely, because
it dates from the last time the database was reformatted.
On 21 May, 1999, the European Commission put forward an amended proposal
for a new Directive on copyright and related rights in the Information
Society. As formulated at present, it includes even transient copies that
are generated as part of the usual process of electronic transmission, and
while it is hoped that this feature will be dropped, the proposal still
appears to be in conflict with many of the principles underlying the Bern
convention.
We haven’t heard of any discussion about these issues within the
scientific community, and yet we could all be very much affected by the
outcome. If there is insufficient incentive to providers, they will not
develop and operate databases that take full advantage of the new
technology. On the other hand, if they are allowed too much profit and
control, the result will be to raise the costs of teaching and research
and impede the very exchange of scientific information which the system is
supposed to make easier.
The publishers have naturally been active in making their views known to
the Commission, as they are right to do. It’s not easy to strike a
fair balance between the rights of the providers and those of the users,
but it certainly isn’t going to come about if only one side is
putting its case. Unfortunately, this is all too likely to happen in
Brussels, because while the information is public, it doesn’t receive
the same publicity as what happens in individual countries. Also,
scientific publishing in the EU is largely concentrated in the hands of a
very few large publishers, whereas the scientists are represented by a
large number of societies divided both by discipline and by country. There
doesn’t seem to be any organisation whose task it is to ensure that
the views of the European scientific community as a whole are adequately
represented in Brussels, whether on this issue or on others.
A proposed change in copyright regulations may seem a dry topic, but it
could have serious consequences for many scientists, especially those who
routinely rely on data bases in their research. You can find the full text
of the Amended Proposal on the web at
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg15/en/intprop/intprop
You’d be wise to have a careful look at what is being proposed, and
to recommend that the learned society or institution you belong to does
the same. We should all be following developments in Brussels more
closely. EU directives can pass through almost unnoticed by the public and
by national politicians, but they have far-reaching effects.
Professor Peter Saunders, Department of Mathematics, King’s
College, Strand, London WC2R 2LS. (Tel. 0171-873-2218; e-mail:
peter.saunders@kcl.ac.uk)
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