Copyright Conundrum

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." -- Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s complaint notwithstanding, 30 years ago copyright was fairly straightforward. If it was in print, it was owned by somebody, and unless that somebody was the public domain, you had to pay for the privilege of using it … unless your use fell under the category of “fair use.”

The Internet has complicated things. Are email contents protected by copyright? How about Facebook® chatter … or, God help us, tweets?

And how about this. If I bring your attention to the following abstract …

Effect of the Incorporation of Nitrogen to a Carbon Matrix on the Selectivity and Capacity for Adsorption of Dibenzothiophenes from Model Diesel FuelMykola Seredych, Denisa Hulicova-Jurcakova and Teresa J. Bandosz
Langmuir, 2010, 26 (1), pp 227–233
Publication Date (Web): August 28, 2009 (Article)
DOI: 10.1021/la902059y
Langmuir, 2010, 26 (1), ... Then they were investigated as adsorbents of dibenzothiophene (DBT) and 4, 6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (DMDBT) from simulated diesel fuel under dynamic conditions with the total concentration of sulfur being 20 ppmw. ...
Source: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la902059y
Is this fair use? Depends on who you ask. I believe it is. Were you to Google® this you would be able to read the abstract for free. I make no money, and if you decide to purchase the full text of the article, the publisher will benefit.

The publisher might disagree and tell me to remove the item from the Desulfurization Blog, which I would do. No harm done.

However, if you are part of a corporation with deep pockets, the danger is greater. There could be real money involved.

Enter the Copyright Clearance Center (http://www.copyright.com/). The CCC’s goal is to encourage copyright compliance. And to further that goal, they seek out ways to make compliance as painless as possible. Here, for example, is a news release from the CCC site …

Copyright Clearance Center Presence in Elsevier's Scopus Introduces Copyright Permissioning into Advanced Databases
Opens Linking Opportunities for Other Application and Web Services Providers
DANVERS, MA, June 24, 2006—Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), the world's largest provider of copyright licensing solutions, today announced that its rights licensing services will be available within Scopus, Elsevier's abstract and citation database of scientific research literature and quality Web sources. Elsevier, which is the world's largest scientific publisher and has licensed its content through CCC for more than 10 years, joins 10 other CCC integration partners, including Docutek, OCLC and Xerox.

The Scopus-CCC link, which will go live in mid-July, is designed to aid academic faculty and staff as well as corporate scientists and researchers who want to share content found in Scopus with students or colleagues. Scopus is the world's largest abstract database. Updated daily, it offers over 15,000 titles from more than 4,000 publishers.

Using the available links, librarians can now choose to allow their Scopus users to see within their search results a "Get Permissions" button when a document or article is available for licensing through CCC. By clicking on the button, users are directed to a new permissions summary page on CCC's Web site that lists all of the available electronic and print rights for that content. Users can then select the rights they want, such as sharing the content with their workgroup or posting the text in a course management system.

"We believe that placing rights licensing at the article level, where content users will see it, can support organizations and institutions with their copyright compliance efforts." said Niels Weertman, Head of Scopus Product Management.

"Integrating these capabilities demonstrates CCC's commitment to technological solutions that improve the user experience and simplify copyright permissions," said Tracey Armstrong, CCC Executive Vice President. "It underscores the growing presence of our copyright capabilities within technologies that search and find content, and we believe this integration has major implications for other search engine providers and application developers."
source: http://www.copyright.com/viewPage.do?pageCode=au122
You can do your executive management … and your legal department … a favor by steering them to CCC