Come fare Open Access? Rispettare il pubblico dominio | Tech Economy

From Google Translate: "The copyright industry has developed over the years of the 'antibodies' against the public domain and has found various ways to keep control over works also very dated and therefore commonly (but naively) now considered a World Heritage Site. Famous is the story of the song Happy Birthday after decades of legal disputes has finally come to a judicial clarification only in 2016; and equally controversial is the story of the Diary of Anna Frank  that due to the death of the protagonist and author dating back to 1945, could have theoretically pass into the public domain on January 1, 2016, if it was then found that the editorial work version it is not only the result of the work of Anna but sees a substantial creative input by the father Otto Frank and his other co-workers. But without getting to these cases (which in fact are quite complex and egregious), there are other far simpler situations and most common in which the rightholders can lengthen in time and scope their control over creative works theoretically already out protection.

The artifices and stratagems are varied and can not be illustrated in detail herein. However, to unite them is the idea to instill in potential users what in the jargon of the new media is called FUD, that is, fear, uncertainty, doubt (fear, uncertainty, doubt) . According to this approach, it does not matter so much the legitimacy of a claim or the actual existence of a right; what matters is intimidating to potential users so that, taken note of doubt, prefer to abstain in order to avoid legal hassles.

It is a deplorable method of how widespread in the field of patents for invention, where often the biggest technology names in the industry claim to have patents in almost all areas under their responsibility, thus obtaining the effect of discouraging potential competitors (smaller and less equipped) who, frightened by the risk of a hard and unequal battle between lawyers, prefer to step back. The same can happen in the field of copyright of which we are concerned, with the difference that here to leave damaged and remain barred from FUD are the common users and not just the competitors.

Those who produce scientific content or deals with distributed and wants to do it in perspective Open Access should definitely refrain from these artifices and should instead be very clear and transparent on the copyright status of their works.

Perhaps it will seem superfluous, but as I see it happen more and more often I want to report it: even apply an 'open' license on public domain work is an absolutely despicable practice as senseless . The shift in the public domain implies that there is no longer any owner of property rights, and therefore no one has no right to regulate the use of the work with a license."