... [T]hose involved with anti-piracy efforts say that university presses are now targets of a number of sites. In a particularly disturbing trend, some presses are reporting that pre-publication digital editions are ending up on these piracy Web sites, raising concerns about the need to better track who has access to such versions.
Princeton University Press has emerged as something of an expert on the issue — a distinction the press wishes it didn’t have. Over the summer, an author the press declined to identify informed the publisher that his book was being made available for downloading in its entirety on one of these Web sites. For several months, Princeton had a staffer focused on identifying piracy sites with its books, and following up with “take down” notices that threaten legal action for keeping the books up. Some of the Web sites take the books down, but then others pop up. ...
Daphne Ireland, director of intellectual property for the Princeton press, said that in the last year, it has succeeded in having several hundred books removed from Web sites where they were being offered free ...
Some university presses — along with other publishers — are trying to join forces to deal with the problem. The Association of American Publishers has helped a group of publishers jointly support the monitoring of pirate Web sites to identify violations. ...
N.B. Several comments on the article suggest OA as an alternative.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 2/19/2009 02:56:00 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.
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.
