The collision of copyright and e-science | Scholarly Communications @ Duke

"Last week I was attending a meeting on campus that had nothing to do with e-science (which today refers to virtually all science, I suppose) when a very fortuitous event occurred.  Professor Jerome Reichman of the Duke Law School handed me a copy of the April 2012 issue of the Minnesota Law Review (vol. 96, no. 4).  That entire issue is an article written by Reichman and Professor Ruth Okediji of the University of Minnesota Law school called 'When Copyright Law and Science Collide: Empowering Digitally Integrated Research Methods in a Global State.'  It is a long article at 118 pages, although, because of the structure and conventions of law review articles in general, it is a quicker read than one might expect.  More importantly, however, it is a very rewarding excursion into the ways that copyright law around the world have developed and become an obstacle to scientific research, an even more 'immediate and pervasive threat', the authors suggest, than the more attention-grabbing problem of patent thickets. The purpose of this post is to summarize the article and commend it to those who want more..."