Wiley-VCH, one of the increasingly few cartels left standing in the scholarly publishing business, has threatened a lawsuit against a neuroscientist blogger who reproduced a small clip of a chart from an article about fruit antioxidants, in a blog about the research. See her story:
http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/04/when_fair_use_isnt_fair_1.php
Not only are the corporate lawyers trying to suppress fair use, and thereby suppressing serious discussion of this article, but if they are successful it would suppress publicity for articles in Wiley journals -- a result that authors and editors surely don't want, and the publisher, if it had any sense, wouldn't want -- but it doesn't appear from this episode that Wiley execs have any sense. An example of the stupidity of letting corporate lawyers determine policy.
Shame on Wiley!!
Bob Michaelson
Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois 60208
rmichael@northwestern.edu
Not so clear to me that this is, in fact, an example of letting
corporate lawyers determine policy. Mostly, corporate lawyers give advice; they do not directly determine policy. The decisionmakers are the corporate executives--or should be (spoken as a lawyer, who recognizes lawyers can sometimes be asses)--and responsibility properly rests ultimately with them. (Lawyers are not excused from responsibility, but their role is different, mostly.)
My understanding is that there have been further developments on this story, and that Wiley has granted permission for reproducing the excerpts (blaming lower downs, not higher ups), without necessarily conceding the fair use issue. I'm not following closely enough for detailed comment here, but check further before taking action in response to Michaelson's posting.
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