Online and out of print

Chris Zielinski, <chris.zielinski[_at_]alcs.co.uk> writes:
>
> Cyberlaw question: when is anything that is placed online, on the
> Internet to be precise, out of print?

[snip]

Specific contracts may resolve your question or raise more issues. Most of the contracts that I have seen with scholarly publishers would permit an author to use (i.e.circulate) his/her own work within limits. In olden days -- before document delivery and the Internet -- this usually meant that the author could include such articles in a monograph (but not a collective work) and make/distribute reprints. One modern contract form that I have seen specifies: make and distribute unlimited copies "for the author's use in teaching" (but fails to define teaching!).

Promoters of the Internet will probably disagree, but I have serious doubts whether making a file or group of files available electronically meets many authors' need for serious dissemination usually understood as being "in print." In terms of promoting readership, how different is an ftp file from a dissertaion on microfilm that is indexed, abstracted and offered for sale?

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com Received on Fri Feb 21 1997 - 23:29:04 GMT