Grasping at straws | Scholarly Communications @ Duke
Grasping at straws | Scholarly Communications @ Duke
Publishers are not afforded any period of copyright protection by the copyright law, anymore than plumbers or ophthalmologist are. This kind of misinformation is intended to create the illusion that publishers’ business models are somehow favored by federal law and thus inviolate, but that is not true. Only one group is afforded copyright protection and the term for which that protection lasts — authors (under section 201(a) of the copyright law, Title 17 of the U.S. code). If publishers hold any rights, they hold those rights only because they are transferred to them by the authors whose works they publish. And if those authors choose, they can transfer less than the full copyright, and for less than the full term of protection.
