Understanding Open Access Vis-À-Vis Fair Dealing/Use
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 29
- 2 min read
Himanshi Tiwari, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow
1. THE IDEOLOGICAL CLASH BETWEEN OPEN ACCESS ENTHUSIASTS AND RIGHTS OWNERS
The law contains “appropriate scope of private monopoly power that gives authors and inventors a sufficient incentive to create and innovate, while ensuring that the consuming public had adequate access to the fruits of their efforts.”
The concept of copyright law, rooted in the traditional theories of intellectual property allows one to claim ownership of a work created out of his skill, labour, judgment and intellect. This allows for reward and incentive in terms of payment to access the creator’s or author’s work. For example, to read a book, we need to buy it, the income from which goes to the author and the publishers. Similarly, a work of art, such as a painting or sculpture can be bought for a certain price to proportionately reward and incentivize the artist. As a result of the copyright, not only is the author entitled to get a monetary reward but is also entitled to claim ownership right of his work and can prevent or exclude others from using or accessing it. However, it may also be possible that such an exclusive right of preventing others from accessing one’s work can seriously prejudice the interests of the public who many not at all times, be able to monetarily afford or pay the price to access such copyrighted works.
This gives rise to the recognition of the “Open Access Movement” which, as the name suggest advocates for openness in terms of accessing academic literature such that it is “digital, online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” The Open Access movement has gained better recognition due to the emergence of internet and the greater reliance placed by the global community on sources of digital information. In this regard, an interesting observation made in the Budapest Open Access Initiative was: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment...The new technology is the Internet.” To better understand the contours of the “Open Access Movement”, various definitions of the same as summarised by John R. Beatty are reproduced below in the table:
