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Subject: Creative Commons Jurisdiction Teams in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Dorothy K. Gordon" <director-general AT aiti-kace.com.gh>
  • Cc: CC Africa mailing list <ccafrica AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ccAfrica] GAPS Academy - online learning platform for African students with 3000+ videos
  • Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2013 17:51:28 +0300

Dear all,

This should be of interest!
----

The SwitchHow one publisher is stopping academics from sharing their research

 One of the world's largest academic publishers has launched a wide-ranging takedown spree, demanding that several different universities take down their own scholars' research.

Elsevier is a commercial firm that publishes some of the leading journals in many academic fields. In recent weeks, it has sent takedown notices to the academic social media network Academia.edu, as well as to the University of Calgary, the University of California-Irvine, and Harvard University.

In these cases, Elsevier is within its legal rights to demand the material be taken down. The firm often requires researchers to surrender their copyrights in a paper as a condition of publishing it. But the takedown campaign goes against a long-standing industry practice in which journal publishers look the other way when academics post their own work.

Elsevier's new hard-line posture is likely to intensify a debate over the future of academic publishing. Thanks to the Internet, academics no longer need traditional academic publishers to distribute their research to the world in paper form. And a growing number of researchers are beginning to wonder if legacy publishers are becoming more of an obstacle than an aid to distributing their work. Outrage over Elsevier's takedown spree could intensify their search for alternative models that allow academics to share their work directly—without companies like Elsevier taking such a big cut.

The new wave of takedown requests

The first signs of Elsevier crackdown trickled out online in early December, when Academia.edu saw a huge spike in takedown notices. "In the past we really got one or two takedowns a week," says Academia.edu CEO Richard Price, "Only very recently did Elsevier start sending take-downs in batches of thousands." Price says the company received around 2,800 take-down requests within the course of a few weeks. The site e-mailed notices to the academics affected, explaining why the papers were taken down.

.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/19/how-one-publisher-is-stopping-academics-from-sharing-their-research/

On Tuesday, October 1, 2013, Dorothy K. Gordon wrote:
Yes, we have had some cases where people have included previously published articles in compilations and in Ghana the newspapers have taken them to court.

So in this case the CC really does protect.

Dorothy K. Gordon
Director-General
Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT
Mobile: 233 265005712
Direct Line: 233 302 683579
Website: www.aiti-kace.com.gh
Encrypt Everything - https://gpgtools.org https://silentcircle.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Gakuru" <gakuru AT creativecommons.org>
To: "Edefe Ojomo" <efeojomo AT gmail.com>
Cc: "CC Africa mailing list" <ccafrica AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, 30 September, 2013 9:04:49 PM GMT +00:00 Casablanca / Monrovia
Subject: Re: [ccAfrica] GAPS Academy - online learning platform for African students with 3000+ videos





Edefe,

I learnt it "by accident" - or so to speak, having contributed may technology articles to various major newspapers and magazines since 2005. T some point I discovered that the media houses could actually sue me for using my own articles which I had freely contributed to them. To confirm it, not so long ago posed the question to the CEO, Kenya Copyright Board at an IP capacity building I had organised locally. The Copyright Chief confirmed it and a Senior Counsel in the room whom had taken a columnist with a newspaper confessed he also learned about it. Well, fortunately none of the media houses ever sued me - but its scary.


Regards,


Alex






On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:52 PM, Edefe Ojomo < efeojomo AT gmail.com > wrote:



Wow, Alex just gave us a legal education there :)


Aurelia has been helping me with the YARA contracts that we have our writers sign, which includes an express assignment of their rights. I wonder whether these people have a similar arrangement with their contributors. If they collect material from contributors on an open license, I guess the contributors need to know that their works will be open for adaptation, reuse, remix, etc, but I'm not sure how that would affect earlier submitted works, which were contributed under a 'closed' policy. I guess if the publisher has been assigned the rights, they may open or close access. The IP lawyers can help with this one... :)


I've sent the gaps people an email, and I'll keep asking around to see if I can get a personal contact. Will keep you all posted...





On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Alex Gakuru < gakuru AT gmail.com > wrote:




Simeon,

The © you mention bothers me, given the websites does not provide their copyright policy

On the webpage http://www.cp-africa.com/submit/ is stated:--


--snip--

Submit an article

...All contributor positions are unpaid...

6. Please adhere to copyright rules. Do not pass on another person’s work as your own.
7. If you submit an article or idea written originally by someone else, please include the following in your submission: article/idea source or link"

--snap--



You are aware that when an author submit an article that gets published (including articles contributed to newspapers) the act is deemed as an author's voluntary transfer of rights to the publisher? i.e. whoever published the works thereafter own the rights so voluntary transferred...

See also:

"..Some publishers are under the mistaken impression that if they don't "buy" any rights, they aren't actually "using" them. This, however, is not true. As an author, you need to be aware that any publication of your material constitutes a transfer of rights..." http://www.writing-world.com/rights/copyright.shtml



THEREFORE;


To encourage hobbyist writers contribution they need to adopt CC licenses.
In my view....


regards,


Alex








On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Dorothy K. Gordon < director-general AT aiti-kace.com.gh > wrote:


Nice Simeon.Please do keep us updated. It would be great to get in touch with them.


best regards

Dorothy K. Gordon
Director-General
Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT
Mobile: 233 265005712
Direct Line: 233 302 683579
Website: www.aiti-kace.com.gh
Encrypt Everything - https://gpgtools.org


  • Re: [ccAfrica] GAPS Academy - online learning platform for African students with 3000+ videos, Alex Gakuru, 12/20/2013

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