Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
I had a post edited to exclude the name of a well known site which makes academic papers available for free. As I recall there was no link. I also expressed an opinion about the operation of the Copyright law in the area of academic journals and the public interest, and my quote was edited to exclude this opinion. Mobileread chooses to err very much on the side of caution, which is regrettable but quite understandable. I choose to abide by this policy, but we should not delude ourselves. There are important and legitimate opinions on copyright which cannot be expressed on mobileread.
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I would suspect the issue is listing the well known pirate site specializing in academic papers, rather than expressing the opinion that academic journals should be excluded from copyright. Once moderators start to pruning posts, it can be easy to over prune.
The area of copyright and patents for works done with public money is very much a gray area. I will say that in the US, educational use falls under the fair use doctrine.
The issue of academic journals, as opposed to the individual articles in them are a different matter. I suspect that in many cases one can get a copy of an academic article, just by contacting the author and asking. I also suspect that the law of unintended consequences would kick in if the actual journals were excluded from copyright. Most academic journals are expensive because they have a very limited readership and it cost money to put them out.