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The Case for Better Management of Information Access in Australian Universities.
Michael
Lean [HREF 1] Copyright Officer, Queensland
University of Technology [HREF 2] and Griffith
University [HREF 3] GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Australia m.lean@qut.edu.au
Keywords
World Wide Web, copyright, information management, information access,
intellectual property, costs, Web access, copyright licenses.
Abstract
Although files were traded on the Internet before the development of the
World Wide Web, it was the advent of the Web that began to make rapid access
to vast amounts of information a reality for the non-technical person.
This kind of access did two things: it raised deep and real concerns amongst
copyright owners about their continuing ability to control the distribution
of their works and it made those same copyright owners see opportunities
for greatly increased sales and profit. It is therefore instructive to
see how this particular aspect of the commercialisation of the Web
has impacted on one sector of our society which has been in the forefront
of the uptake and development of Web-based activity - the universities.
Australian universities are net consumers of information. As Web-based
technology improves, so too does the potential and desire to access and
communicate to students more and more of their course materials and readings
via this medium. This may not be an economically sound practice. This paper
describes the current licences which enable information access by universities,
as well as the forces and players involved and examines the rising costs
associated with such access to copyright material. The paper goes on to
predict a very dramatic rise in licence costs in the near future. It then
looks at the need to manage consumption more carefully, and finally suggests
ways of doing this and containing the cost rises.
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