Date sent: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:49:16 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kathryn D. Ellis" <ellis@aztec.lib.utk.edu>
Send reply to: "Kathryn D. Ellis" <ellis@aztec.lib.utk.edu>
To: cweisser@chuma.cas.usf.edu, jbaker@chuma.cas.usf.edu,
jwalker@chuma.cas.usf.edu
Copies to: john@december.com, editor@chronicle.com
Subject: Article on Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Hello,
I saw your article on ETDs mentioned in the Chronicle of Higher
Education's Academe Today (11/21/97). The Chronicle's brief description
included this final sentence: "One problem is that students must assign
the copyrights on their work to universities in order to put it on line,
but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requires a hard copy of each
work before it will award a copyright."
I was flabbergasted by this statement, because the Patent and Trademark
Office has nothing to do with Copyright administration. I wondered if the
Chronicle had made a mistake. So I went to look at your article itself
(at http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/nov/etds.html).
You said at the beginning of the section on Copyrights and Publishing:
"Copyrights of electronic theses and dissertations remain with the author;
however, students assign rights to publish the electronic version online.
But, currently, the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office requires a hard
copy of a work in order to secure copyright; they do not accept disks or
other digital forms for registration (Frank, 24 Jan. 1997)."
The article itself said the Patent[s] and Trademark[s] Office(!), but with
a citation reference. I followed the link to the Email references and
(after I figured out that I had to search in the file for the appropriate
reference, rather than the link being to the particular email in question)
found that your source consisted of one sentence, "One of the St. Pete
librarians today said that they found out that the only way to copyright a
disseration is to send hardcopy to LC. They don't accept disks for
registration."
This source clearly indicated that "LC" is where copyright materials are
registered. The source was herself citing another source and could hardly
be considered authoritative. So I went to the Library of Congress web site
and followed the link from their homepage to the Copyright web site (at
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/).
They have lots of information on
copyright registration, references to the legal code, and pointers to
internet resources. They also have reports of their work to allow
electronic registration of materials. From their site, I could not find
anything that said they would not accept diskettes (I don't know if they
do or don't, but it certainly wasn't obvious to me that they don't).
Copyright and intellectual property issues are confusing enough, without
adding unnecessary false information. I don't know where you came up with
the Patent and Trademark office, but I think it is shameful that it is so
obviously wrong, doesn't match your cited source, apparently wasn't
checked with the obvious source (the Copyright office), and was further
propagated by [Computer-Mediated Communication]
Magazine and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
This is of concern to me, because poor scholarship reflects badly on all
of us and this kind of careless work is exactly the kind of evidence our
detractors use.
Sincerely,
Kathryn D. Ellis, Librarian
kellis@utk.edu