Posted: Oct 13, 2010 3:56 am
rEvolutionist wrote:Oh, yeah. I just saw the date of the post previous to mine.
I'll ask our library what the copyright issues are with some of the journals. I know that it is legal to copy up to about 10% of a bound book (so that includes a bound journal of multiple volumes/issues), and that in some cases it is ok to use that for educational purposes. I suspect you are right that we couldn't post a whole article from Nature or Science, but I'll ask anyway, and see what answer I get. We might be able to get away with posting the Abstract/Introduction and Conclusions perhaps?
Anyone can quote a citation and abstract like this:-
Wilkinson, G. S. (1988). "Reciprocal altruism in bats and other mammals." Ethology and Sociobiology 9(2-4): 85-100.
In this paper five conditions are specified which must be met before reciprocal altruism, rather than kin selection, should be invoked. Four purported mammalian examples-- social grooming in coati, cluster position in roosting pallid bats, information exchange among greater spear-nosed bats, and blood regurgitation among vampire bats--are examined to determine if reciprocal altruism is necessary to plausibly explain each situation. Results from a computer simulation which apportions the relative selective advantage of vampire bat food sharing to kin selection and reciprocal altruism are then presented. The results demonstrate that the increase in individual survivorship due to reciprocal food sharing events in this species provides a greater increase in inclusive fitness than can be attributed to aiding relatives. This analysis suggests that reciprocal altruism can be selectively more important than kin selection when altruistic behaviors in a relatively large social group occur frequently and provide a major fitness benefit to the recipient even when that recipient is related to the donor.
Beyond that, most jurisdictions would allow photocopying posting or quoting around 10% of the article. I think the main concern is that you don't distribute the article, particularly for money. fair use for personal education or whatever is OK. But if you distributed a paper in class without getting permission first that would be a plain breach of copyright.