Publisher claims it had licence to sell theses online

In a new twist to the controversy over the suspected illegal online sale of University of Hong Kong theses, a publisher involved has told the press that the works in question were obtained under a licence which allows commercial use, writes Elizabeth Cheung for the South China Morning Post.

The publisher’s defence came as the University of Hong Kong or HKU announced to its staff that it would issue take-down letters to websites selling the theses and that it had mobilised a team of senior staff to take further action. Creative Media Partners LLC said the theses were “legally published” by the Open Dissertation Press, which is an imprint of US-based Creative Media Partners.

Academic works by tens of thousands of the university’s graduates, also publicly available on its HKU Scholars Hub website, were found being sold by notable online bookstores, including Amazon, Book Depository, Fishpond, and Barnes and Noble. It sparked citywide concerns as to whether the dissertations were being sold illegally without the consent of the authors and the university.
Full report on the South China Morning Post site