Intellectual Property Rights: Issues for Creation of Institutional Repository

The present scholarly publishing system, at best can be described as a monolithic complex tangle of monopolistic publishers and their stringent copyright policies for content, which to say the least, are not in the author's or society's interest. The open access (OA) movement has brought a whiff of fresh air and is fast emerging as a possible solution to the problem of 'chained content'. It has spawned several initiatives, which in their own way propose to change the way people publish and share scholarly content. Institutional repository (IR) is becoming one of the most popular tools for self-archival and dissemination of an organisation's intellectual or scholarly output. The primary objective is not just preservation or changing the scholarly publication process, but showcasing the institution's research or work to the outside community. The IR serves as A tangible indicator of an institution's quality, thus increasing its visibility, prestige, and public value. One of the biggest roadblocks to self-archiving is the copyright policies of publishers, which may not allow or allow self-archiving with associated riders. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) issues and content licensing are major policy issues from creation and depositing content in an IR. The paper examines the implications of copyright in the context of populating IR.