Copyright and Intellectual Property: A generally excellent article by Charles Mann "Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea: appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in Sept. 1998. It can be obtained by pressing here (it's in three parts) and in October an on-line discussion of these issues will take place. It can (will) be accessed at the same URL. (and can I endorse The Atlantic -- a great magazine that I've been taking for years).
There were a number of useful URLs at the Atlantic Monthly site.
Below are three that should be of special interest to academicians. I put
the links here to save interested readers a bit of time:
Indiana University's Tutorial on Copyright
Fair use On-Line: A product of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University
Scientific Publication: Tom Walker at the University of Florida has put a lot of time into electronic publication of scientific reports. At his instigation, the Florida Entomologist became the first journal to go online in addition to paper publication. He has written extensively about the costs and benefits of electronic publication. And rather damningly about the great rip-off attempt by publishers to charge exorbitant amounts for web publications. Press here for an online version of one of his articles,
Walker, T.J. 1998. Free Internet access to traditional journals. Am. Sci. 86(5): 463-471.
__________ 1996. Electronic reprints-Segueing into electronic publication of biological journals. BioScience 46(3): 171.