[Open-access] Fwd: Freedom to mine factual information from Springer journals

Wed Apr 25 14:59:44 UTC 2012

PMR initial e-mail to, and initial correspondence from, Springer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: Freedom to mine factual information from Springer journals
To: "Stelt van der, Wim, Springer SBM NL" <Wim.vanderStelt at springer.com>

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 12:03 PM, Stelt van der, Wim, Springer SBM NL <
Wim.vanderStelt at springer.com> wrote:

> Peter,
> Sending me a request like this on a saturday morning with such a short
> deadline is quite challenging. I need to figure out the licencing terms and
> see what we can do.
>

I appreciate that it's short notice. I am not deliberately trying to put
you under pressure. I was hoping the answer would be simple. That Springer
would be able to say "YES, everyone can textmine facts".  If it's not
simple, then that's the situation that I have to report.

FWIW I have been trying to get clear terms out of assorted publishers for
several years and failing with many. I couldn't get a clear answer out of
Springer 4 years ago on their Open Access licences in hybrid journals. It's
not a new issue.

By contrast with BMC I can answer the question in 15 seconds - inspect the
licence and that's it.

So no, I am not trying to be confrontational but all major publisher,
whether deliberately or not, make it almost impossible to get clear
information. Unless Jan Velterop had given me your name I wouldn't have
know where to go in Springer

Best

Peter

> Wim
>
> Wim van der Stelt
> Springer
> EVP Business Development
>
>  *From*: Peter Murray-Rust [mailto:pm286 at cam.ac.uk]
> *Sent*: Saturday, March 10, 2012 11:16 AM
> *To*: Stelt van der, Wim, Springer SBM NL
> *Cc*: Patricia Killiard <pk219 at cam.ac.uk>; Peter Morgan <pbm2 at cam.ac.uk>;
> Edmund Chamberlain <emc59 at cam.ac.uk>
> *Subject*: Freedom to mine factual information from Springer journals
>
> Wim,
> [We corresponded earlier. If you are not the correct person in Springer to
> answer the question below please can you forward it to the person who is,
> let me know their name/email and ask them to reply substantively to me.]
>
> We are making representations in response to the Hargreaves report and in
> particular about the freedom to use machines to extract and publish factual
> information from scientific publications without legal and technical
> barriers.
>
> We are now in the position where we can extract factual chemical
> information from the full text of articles with high precision and recall
> (accuracy is > 99.5% and recall > 95%) and with great speed and
> cost-effectiveness. The University of Cambridge is a subscriber to Springer
> journals and we would like to begin to extract information on a systematic
> basis for Open scientific research. This applies to all Springer journals,
> not just BMC and Springer Open. We don’t need technical help or permission
> from the Springer . We have copied Cambridge University Library staff.
>
> This mail is to ask your assurance that we can do this without (a)
> legal/contractual barriers from Springer and (b) that we shall not be cut
> off by Springer robots. We wish to start immediately to show Hargreaves the
> benefit of information mining – they have a deadline for 2012-03-21 so we
> would like your agreement by 2012-03-15. All we require is:
>
> YES: you may mine and publish factual information from Springer journals
> without additional payment and without restriction from legal and technical
> barriers.
>
> I hope you can trust me to act responsibly on not violating copyright and
> being considerate to your robots. I have set out more details and a
> non-exhaustive illustration of facts in
> http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2012/03/04/information-mining-and-hargreaves-i-set-out-the-absolute-rights-for-readers-non-negotiable.
>
> Unfortunately any other reply than YES by 2012-03-15 will be regarded as
> unacceptable for the purposes of Hargreaves.
>
> You will note that we are also approaching other major publishers of
> science. Elsevier has already publicly said we can mine their content for
> research and we’ll be publishing the facts under an Open licence.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Peter
>
> --
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
>

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069

-- 
Naomi Lillie
Foundation Administrator and Community Coordinator (Open Bibliography)
Open Knowledge Foundation
http://okfn.org/
Skype: n.lillie
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