More on the Veeck case....The Supreme Court has refused to hear SBCCI's appeal from the Fifth Circuit decision letting Veeck post a copyrighted statute (yes, a copyrighted statute) to his web site. The Fifth Circuit compromise is that when such a statute is treated as the law of the land, then it may be distributed freely as if it were in the public domain like other statutes. But when the same text is treated as a model code written and copyrighted by a private trade organization, then distribution without permission is forbidden as infringement. Because the rule is not the same in every circuit, the Supreme Court may accept the question one day for definitive resolution.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/02/2003 05:50:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
