Exploring copyright solutions to online‐sharing of scientific literature
| Published date | 07 September 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831011076710 |
| Date | 07 September 2010 |
| Pages | 478-488 |
| Author | Huang Xianrong,Li Xiao |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Exploring copyright solutions
to online-sharing of scientific
literature
Huang Xianrong and Li Xiao
Department of Publishing Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effective mechanisms to balance the “sharing
online” and the “copyright protection” of scientific literature in the digital environment, under the
existing legal systems in China.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is through scrutinizing the legal provisions referring
to fair-use, statutory licensing, collective administration of copyright, and information dissemination
by a library or through a computer network in current laws of the People’s Republic of China, as well
as through examining the successful copyright solution in China.
Findings – The paper concludes that statutory licensing plus common-use licensing is the proper
and effective approach in the current situation, while collective management should be enhanced, and
technological measures should be strengthened without prejudice to the public interest.
Practical implications – The exploration of copyright solutions could raise law and policy debates,
in order to realize scientific literature sharing online and facilitate scholarly communication in the
digital age.
Originality/value – The paper describes the possible legal room from scattered provisions of laws
and regulations, lists the schemes for scientific information dissemination online in sequence, provides
insight into noticeable licensing models and summarizes good experience, and discusses the
technological measure issues while giving adaptive suggestions. It is, therefore, of use to scholars,
librarians, and practitioners in the library and information field. The suggestions can help modify the
copyright laws and the policies as further step.
Keywords Copyright law, China,Research work, Digital storage
Paper type Viewpoint
1. Introduction
In the digital and web-based Age, the “online-sharing” and the “copyright protection” of
scientific literature have been highly concerned as tow themes. While the former has
become a common aspiration, the latter still unsettled. Since the 1990s of the last century,
China has been making efforts in carving out a path to apply modern communication
technology into scientific information dissemination and scholarly communication.
However, copyright issues are brought by ineffectiveness of large mounts of copyright
licensing. Especially, the digital library projects are in the high occurrence area of
copyright infringements and thwarted when prosecuted. Moreover, the application of
protective technological measures strengthens the copyright control, and further
restricts the public use. Besides, with the open access (OA) movement spreading in
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
This paper documents the project “Copyright protection research under the context of
online-sharing of scientific papers (Project No. 2008113)”, sponsored by Center for Science and
Technology Development of Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.
LHT
28,3
478
Received 8 July 2009
Revised 11 November 2009
Accepted 14 November 2009
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 28 No. 3, 2010
pp. 478-488
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378831011076710
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