Dear All, Greetings from the NCSI-Net Foundation. We hope you are well, staying safe and healthy. NCSI-Net Foundation cordially invites you and your colleagues to Dr T.B. Rajashekar 16th Memorial Lecture, 2021 on: Revisiting Copyright and the Republic of Science: Reframing Copyright Theories From Property to Public Good. by Professor Shalini Urs Founder Chairperson and Trustee MYRA School of Business, Mysore - 571130 & Former Founder Director and Professor International School of Information Management University of Mysore Mysore - 570006, India. Date & Time: Friday, 16th July 2021 at 3.00 p.m. An online webinar link will be sent in a subsequent announcement. Abstract This talk will briefly lay the foundations for revisiting the theoretical justifications for copyright by discussing the four theoretical frameworks: utilitarian theory, the labor-desert theory, the personality theory, and the social planning theory. While the utilitarian theory and the social planning theory build their theoretical explanations on the notion of maximization of social welfare through diverging on how they each define "welfare." The labor-desert theory and the personality theory form the Rights-based theories and justify copyright as a "natural right" given to the creator of copyright material. The norms of "the Republic of Science" are famously articulated by Robert Merton and compactly summarized by the mnemonic "CUDOS": Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Originality, and Skepticism. These CUDOS norms not only dovetail with Popper's ideal of Open Society but are intrinsic to the scientific enterprise. Scientific or scholarly information exhibits the two cardinal characteristics of Public Good*non-excludable and non-rivalrous. From an economic point of view, scientific products are essentially public goods, and from a sociological point of view, scientific research is a product of social collaboration, and its ownership belongs to the community. Asserting that production of scientific knowledge does not belong to the "natural right" category, and the public good is social welfare, I argue that it is time to revisit the copyright issue and turn it on its head. We need to reframe the copyright theories in the context of CUDOS norms and the principle that knowledge is a non-excludable and non-rivalrous commodity. About the speaker: Dr Shalini R Urs is an internationally recognized academic who began her career in academia 44 years back, joining the University of Mysore as a lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science in 1976. She is an institution builder whose brainchild is the MYRA School of Business (www.myra.ac.in<http://www.myra.ac.in/>), which she founded in 2012. She also founded the International School of Information Management (www.isim.ac.in<http://www.isim.ac.in/>) -- the first Information School in India, as an autonomous constituent unit of the University of Mysore in 2005. She is currently involved with Gooru India Foundation as a Board member (https://gooru.org/about/team) and is actively involved in the implementation of the Gooru Learning Platform in India and building the Indian Learning Collective. She has served as a UNESCO expert on several occasions and was commissioned to conduct many studies in the last twenty years. Her contributions have won her several awards. She was a Fulbright scholar and a visiting professor at the Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, the USA during 2000 - 2001; an adjunct faculty at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIITB) during 2005-2007; and a visiting professor at the Documentation Research and Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore during 1998 and 1999. Passionate and dedicated to digital scholarship, she has lead many digital initiatives in India. She pioneered the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Movement in India in 2000 and won the Microsoft Grant for implementing UNICODE for Indian Languages in 2003. Adobe Leadership award in 2004. She conceptualized and developed the Vidyanidhi Digital Library and eScholarship portal (www.vidyanidhi.org.in)<file://Users/apple/Downloads/(www.vidyanidhi.org.in)> in 2000 with funding from the Government of India, which became a national initiative with a further grant from the Ford Foundation. She built an online digital library way back in 2000, much before the digital era captured the imagination in India. With decades of experience in academia and educational entrepreneurship, she initiated many innovative programmes, founded the International School of Information Management in 2005 and the MYRA School of Business in 2012. Currently, she is focused on academic research, writing and her consulting and advisory role in various organizations. We look forward to seeing you at the event. With best regards, Francis Jayakanth For and on behalf of, NCSI-Net Foundation francis at iisc.ac.in<http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum>