Barbara Quint, Dialog's New AeroBase File Uses Federal Data Source, Information Today, April 19, 2004. Dialog has added AeroBase, a database on the aerospace industry, to its list of other offerings. However, Quint has discovered that AeroBase charges users for information that NASA provides to the public free of charge through its Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports. AeroBase doesn't mention that the information comes from NASA and is uncopyrightable. On the contrary, it asserts that the information is "provided by Dialog" and claims that "AeroBase contains copyrighted information". There may be an innocent explanation for the way Dialog is misleading consumers. The NASA contract prohibits use of the NASA name or initials without the agency's permission and Dialog may have thought that it was not allowed to disclose the source of the information. Quint talked to a NASA official who said that permission "would certainly have been granted if requested" (Quint's paraphrase). We'll see whether Dialog seeks permission and discloses the true source and the true copyright status of the information even if it doesn't disclose that NASA offers an OA version of the same information. Dialog is a division of Thomson.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/19/2004 09:53:00 AM.
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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
