[Open-access] [open-science] CC-BY

Tue Sep 3 19:08:10 UTC 2013

On 2013-09-03, at 1:50 PM, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> I have had in-depth discussions with both Heather Morrison and Rosie Redfield.

Do you have any details about these discussions? I have no memory of this. Perhaps you spoke with another Heather Morrison? My name is not uncommon. 

> I think they misinterpret what CC-BY allows and what CC-NC prevents.

PMR, are you assuming that I am advocating for CC-NC? If so, your assumption is not correct. I advocate against the push for CC-BY as a default, and especially against forcing people to use this license. However, I am not convinced that any of the CC licenses is exactly right for scholarly works. I advocate for experimentation in this area, not requiring a particular license. My own position on this topic is expressed in my blogpost, Articulating the commons: a leaderful approach:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2011/12/articulating-commons-leaderful-approach.html

> In science, at least, we have used CC-BY for 10 years with no problems.

Do you have evidence to back up this assertion?

The majority of scientific works published in the last 10 years, to the best of my knowledge, have been published as toll access. Of the works published as open access, not all are published with CC licenses, and those that are published with CC licenses do not necessarily use CC-BY.

> The only real effect , in science, for CC-NC - is that it allows the publisher (not the author) to make additional money from reselling rights to the article. Thus a CC-NC for an Elsevier article does not forbid commercial re-use- it simply means that re-users have to pay Elsevier an additional and lucrative tax. CC-NC in science is about ibcreasing publisher income, not about restricting re-use.

This statement assumes that publishers retain copyright. I argue that scholarly authors, not publishers, should retain copyright. 

I also argue that blanket permission for commercial rights (CC-BY) is a larger problem for downstream re-enclosure than CC-NC. For example,  there is nothing to stop a publisher from removing the CC-BY copy and replacing it with one that is CC-BY-NC, or one that is All Rights Reserved. There is nothing in the CC-BY license that would prohibit this.

Consider that the world's largest OA publisher, BioMedCentral, was sold to Springer, a primarily toll access publisher, a few years ago. Recently, Springer was sold to a new set of private interests - the 4th such transfer of ownership for this company in about a decade. If a downstream owner of BMC content wanted to revert this content to toll access, there is nothing in CC-BY to prevent them from doing so. Fortunately, BMC content is also in PubMedCentral - but a for-profit company wishing to reap profits from toll access to this content would have significant incentive to lobby against public funding for PMC, and in this economic environment governments may well listen. For this reason, I strongly encourage authors, even authors publishing in fully OA venues, to also self-archive in both disciplinary and institutional repositories.   

> 
> In A+H the current ethos is that authors sell their books.

Not all social sciences, arts and humanities scholars publish books. There is a diversity of scholarly practices in this broad set of disciplines. Many disciplines and sub-disciplines are just as much oriented towards journal articles as much as the sciences. In science also there is a diversity of publishing practices - scientists  write books, too. 

> CC-NC may have a bearing on this, though it will depend on the exact details of copyright and the publisher. In general CC-NC controls who can make money.

Note that I am not necessarily advocating for CC-NC, rather advocating against CC-BY, particularly the explicit granting of commercial and derivative rights, and particularly policies enforcing the use of this license. Klaus' point about no copyright in the middle ages is a good one; no copyright may be better than the explicit granting of commercial rights and derivatives with CC-BY. For example, the attribution requirement and strong author moral rights of CC-BY are in some ways problematic for scholarship. 

One point where we might agree is that it is not helpful to scholarship to have commercial publishers retaining copyright and releasing works under the NC license so that they can retain commercial rights. Where we likely differ is our assessment of what the problem is. I think that your position is that NC is the problem. My position is that extensive commercial involvement in scholarly publishing is the problem. I think your position is that forbidding NC will solve the problem, whereas my position is that forbidding NC will make things worse. 

best,

Heather Morrison
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Klaus Graf <klausgraf at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I cannot see the NSA context of CC-BY, sorry.
> 
> There was no copyright in the middle ages and a lot of fruitful plagiarism. May I remember to my thoughts at
> 
> http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/5/
> 
> CC-BY-ND blocks translations and other derivative works.
> 
> CC-BY-NC blocks scholarly use in commercial context e.g. use in the most (commercial) e-journals.
> 
> Klaus Graf
> 
> 
> 2013/9/3 Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>
> This argument appears to reflect a position of technological determinism which I reject - the idea that we are helpless to do anything but adapt to advancing technology. The key problem with this argument is that it is we humans that create the technology, and we have the ability to shape it.
> 
> Another example of this kind of argument that people are thankfully beginning to question, is the idea that now that we have the internet it is ridiculous to think that there is any notion of privacy and the accompanying idea that society both can and does accept this.
> 
> Snowden's revelations of NSA surveillance are such a good illustration of the dangers of this loss of privacy that people are beginning to take notice and say that yes, we do want privacy in the online environment. Humans are not helpless with respect to this technology; we created it, and we can shape it future.
> 
> This perspective is essential to the work of advocates for open access, open science, a free and open internet. We work for this (I think) because we perceive this as a desirable potential of the internet, and we do not believe that this potential will be achieved by sitting back and watching the technology unfold, but rather because we think action is both necessary and desirable.
> 
> If you're interested in the social shaping of technology, you might want to read some of Andrew Feenberg, e.g. Questioning Technology or Transforming Technology.
> 
> ~ my two bits ~ thoughts?
> 
> Heather Morrison
> 
> 
> 
> On 2013-09-03, at 10:48 AM, Luke Winslow wrote:
> 
>> This kind of thing has been happening for a while. It is a natural consequence of open licenses. Wikipedia has been re-packaged and sold many times. While I can't find an example, popular open source software has fallen prey from time to time, being repackaged and sold to uninformed consumers who don't realize there are cost-free versions available.
>> 
>> I would argue this new world requires more of the consumer. Be savvy. Do a little google research. There's no going back to simpler times, the complexity is here to stay.
>> 
>> -Luke
>> 
>> On 2013-09-03 9:08 AM, Klaus Graf wrote:
>>> http://blogs.ubc.ca/chendricks/2013/08/31/troubling-open-access-cc-by/
>>> 
>>> Thoughts?
>>> 
>>> Klaus Graf
>>> 
>>> 
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> --
> Dr. Heather Morrison
> Assistant Professor
> École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
> University of Ottawa
> 
> http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
> 
> ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 /
> Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
> sept-1 oct 2013
> 
> http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
> http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
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> -- 
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069

-- 
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca

ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 /
Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
sept-1 oct 2013

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html

-- 
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca

ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 /
Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
sept-1 oct 2013

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html