Re: question

On 09/08/98, Beverly Bowles <bbowles[_at_]hshsl.umaryland.edu> wrote:
>
> An organization wants to make a CD-ROM containing their guidelines.
> They want to attach a bibliography to the guidelines. They want the
> user to be able to click on a citation and get the abstract to the
> article. NOT the entire article.
>
> Is this going against copyright? The abstract of the article will be
> gotten from medline.

I would highly recommend checking each abstract individually (or by publisher) as to whether you can do this. From what I understand medline to be, it contains works from many publishers. Some publishers own and defend copyright in abstracts as well as entire articles. I know for a fact that the American Institute of Physics (whose articles don't typically appear in medline, but other publishers may work in similar manners) owns copyright in each abstract and protects it. They have an abstract database and do not want it compromised. They do license the abstracts to other groups, but recently I noticed annoyance down the hall when it saw a database using some of the abstracts (there was approval), but had moved the copyright statement from the end of the abstract to above the abstract where it places all copyright statements (this other database has a set format with all the information about the abstract above the abstract - e.g., title, authors, affilliations, journal, keywords, abstract copyright, etc.). I do not know what action has been taken on this, but this can give you an idea of the problems.

                                       Sincerely,
                                       angela


                                       Angela Putney, Ph.D.
                                       Physics Management Fellow
                                       American Institute of Physics
                                       One Physics Ellipse
                                       College Park, MD 20740
		
                                       Phone: 301-209-3135
                                       Fax:     301-209-3133
                                       E-mail: aputney[_at_]aip.org