On 6/10/03 5:44 PM, "Peter Suber" <peters=
@earlham.edu> wrote:
At 04:42 PM 6/10/2003 -0400, you wr=
ote:
On 6/10/03 1:26 PM, "Stevan Ha=
rnad" <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> So copyright is certainly not the problem.
That may be true for certain disciplines, but I can attest that in the
humanities, where we cite original literature, we find it expensive and
sometimes impossible to make our research internet accessible.
Margaret
Margaret,
Could you elaborate on this a bit further? &n=
bsp;I can understand why art historians and art critics have problems.  =
;They want to reproduce entire works to illustrate their points. But I=
don't see any comparable problem for scholarship in literature, history, ph=
ilosophy, or religion. Citing original literature, and quoting passage=
s in fair use, do not violate copyright.
I can also see why copyright would thwart tho=
se who want to make anthologies or reprint whole works; but these problems a=
ffect all disciplines equally.
Best,
Peter
Sorry I wasn’t more explicit=
. By “literature” I was thinking of creative writings, such as p=
oetry, fiction, drama, the texts of which do not get into the public domain =
for years (and the time has recently been increased further). Publishers con=
sider one poem a “complete” work (as opposed to a book of poems)=
, which means if you want to cite an entire poem, it is not considered fair =
use. I know this could be debated, but scholars tend not to be willing to ta=
ke on the publishers on their own. Even in scholarly articles, we have to pa=
y fees (e.g. $200 for one poem by Sylvia Plath), and the restrictions are he=
avy (no publishing elsewhere or loading on websites).
Margaret