[LIS-Forum] OA law project

arun at mssrf.res.in arun at mssrf.res.in
Mon Mar 6 01:57:41 IST 2006


QUT launches OA law project

Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the first university anywhere
to adopt an OA mandate, has launched an Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law
project.

>From the site:

    In today’s ever-changing world, open access to knowledge is
increasingly important, as both an economic and social force. This
project aims to ensure that people can legally and efficiently share
knowledge across domains and across the world. This will be of
significance to the every day citizen through to top-end researchers.
The project will develop legal protocols for managing copyright issues
in an open access environment and investigate provision and
implementation of a rights expression language for implementing such
protocols at a technical level. At both levels, legal and technical,
the project will integrate with existing open access repositories. The
significance of the project is that it will provide a vital
infrastructure to the open access landscape that does not adequately
exist at the moment.

Quoting Tom Cochran, QUT's Deputy Vice-Chancellor:

    It is often observed that the law and law making lags behind
technology. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the maze of rights
management and rights assertion surrounding access to content which is
increasingly in digital form, often exclusively. Queensland University
of Technology is pleased to be the supporting institution for this
project, to systematically develop more assured processes,
understandings and protocols to assist the smooth flow of knowledge
and information for a variety of communities in future years. In doing
so it particularly recognizes the public policy imperative of freeing
up access to publicly funded research and its outputs.

Also see the press release announcing the project (February 21, 2006):

    A new "open access to knowledge" project hosted by the Queensland
University of Technology aims to ensure that anyone can legally share
knowledge across the world, whether they be an every day citizen or a
top end researcher. The QUT team, led by School of Law head, Professor
Brian Fitzgerald is embarking on a $1.3 million, two year project to
develop legal protocols for managing copyright issues in an open
access environment. The Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project,
when complete, would provide legal protocols that would free up the
national and international research environment and remove barriers to
reusing and remixing information, Professor Fitzgerald said...."If
researchers know they can safeguard their work with OAK Law protocols
they will be more comfortable with making it available online and thus
increase the stock of knowledge available to everyone," Prof
Fitzgerald said. "The OAK Law protocols will benefit everyone from
school students to Nobel Prize winners who can go online, do a Google
search, find relevant research and use it without fear of being sued
for copyright infringements. The project will work with cutting edge
research repositories in marine science and medical research to ensure
that all Australians have the right to access and, where permitted,
reuse high quality research data in their daily lives."




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