Guest guest Posted December 27, 2007 Report Share Posted December 27, 2007 The following message was sent some days ago but hasn't gone through. I think I didn't press the send button. I can't pretend to be drunk at the time, since being a good PSC patient, alcohol scarsely touches my lips, even at this festive period. I'm coming in very late on this question, (of copyright), and fortunately it's gone off the boil: we now have a set of sensible rules to follow when in doubt. As a free-lance writer I'm sensitive to theft of intellectual property but the important point here is that in all the years of people posting information to this forum, (and this is overwhelmingly scientific/medical info.), I don't think we've ever taken the bread out of anybody's mouth. In any case if you look at the copyright of many of the medical journals we consult there is a statement to the effect that the information is to be used by medical professionals. Or - "The content on this site is to be used by health professionals." Well we do have some medical professionals in this group, but apart from that our function is quasi-medical. Those who post info regularly are doing it so we can all understand as much as possible about our illnesses and the research going on to find the causes. On the basis of this info. and our personal experience we try to offer advice to everybody, especially newcomers. I can't see that any medical publisher or editor could raise objections to this. In editing our newsletter, "PSC-News" in the UK I do sometimes have to make calls to journals and the media in Britain and across the Atlantic to seek permission to use diagrams and chunks of articles. It can be time-consuming to find the copyright office and the person responsible. I have never met with a refusal and have always found a friendly and helpful response. I've even been told that they feel honoured that their literature can be of help to us. Medical publishers do know very well how to protect their interests and often provide only very short extracts or none at all. But there are others who have a stronger sense of public responsibility and provide substantial parts of their publications in full and for free. Most notably; Gastroenterology NEJM Gut Lancet BMJ etc. The Mayo and the Hopkins Medical Institutions Resource Center have also been highly cooperative. If you look up Gastroenterology for Dec. 2007 you'll see that some important article of relevance to us have the word FREE attached. These include; "Improvements in survival assoc. with Adult-to Adult Living Donor Liver Tx." "How to prevent varices from bleeding..." "Live donor liver tx. Is it better than waiting?" "Mortality in IBD patients." So I don't believe that Dave, Barb, Arne, Pat and others should in any way feel constrained to continue with their important and very useful postings. But if in doubt apply the rules. It's Christmas day today. Here in London there's no chance of snow - it's 50C - very damp, grey and wet. It's rain over this holiday so we sympathise with those of you suffering heavy snow storms From all of us PSCers in the UK to all of you in the US of A, wishing you a happy 2008 with minimal health problems. Ivor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Happy New Year wishes coming your way Ivor !!!LeeFrom all of us PSCers in the UK to all of you in the US of A, wishing you a happy 2008 with minimal health problems. Ivor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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