[open-science] SPARC author addendum uses CC-NC licence and now all hybrid publishers have followed

Sun Dec 11 17:59:30 UTC 2011

Thank you Heather!

Well made points, really glad you have brought up such an important issue.

 I aired similar worries in previous related posts.

There could be commercial motives behind manipulating the open data
movement while actually pushing for royalty free data and content, to
 benefit *only* those who have the marketing networks in place, ie, major
shareholders of the intellectual property industry, who have the economic
power to generate wealth from creative works, and, as it happens, also
control over multinational information networks.

I stand by author's rights as human rights, and fully second your stance.

In the case of government data,  commercial exploitation rights should be
paid to cover for the costs of generating and curating their publication,
essentially meaning that the open data will not be a burden on taxpayers,
but a sustainable economic system.

Hope there will be opportunities to make a stronger and wider case
about this in the future

best

PDM

On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Heather Morrison <heatherm at eln.bc.ca>wrote:

> Some further thoughts on CC licenses and open access:
>
> Scholars need and want to disseminate their work, and for others to build
> on it. Open access is awesome for that. However, scholars are also human
> beings who need food and shelter. Peter Murray-Rust, may I assume  that you
> have a secure, tenured position and financial security for your retirement?
> If so, this is great, but you should be aware that this not true for an
> increasing percentage of scholars today. In the U.S., for example, my
> understanding is that 75% of courses are now taught by sessionals.
>
> From the American Association of University Professors FAQ, here are some
> of measures being taken to address the financial crisis in academia:
> "hiring and salary freezes, furloughs, salary cuts, layoffs, nonrenewals,
> reduction and elimination of academic programs and colleges, revision of
> curricula, changes in academic policy, elimination of tenure, substantial
> changes in workload"...
> http://www.aaup.org/aaup/**financial/mainpage.htm<http://www.aaup.org/aaup/financial/mainpage.htm>
>
> As a personal story, lack of financial security is one of the reasons why
> I use CC-NC. The vast majority of my own work is not funded at all. This is
> increasingly common in the social sciences and humanities. There could be a
> point in time where I might have good reason to want to try to sell some of
> my work, to pay my rent and grocery bills. Not that I personally am that
> important, but the measures mentioned above indicate that I have plenty of
> company. Like most scholars and publishers, I am the 99%.
>
> If I gave away my work and saw that someone else had sold it and kept the
> profits for themselves, I would be MAD. Not only at them - but also at
> anyone who told me that I should give away my work. If I was among those
> who were recently laid off, and I saw someone else profiting off my work, I
> would be REALLY REALLY MAD. Wouldn't you?
>
> Publishers also need resources in order to produce work, whether this is
> paid, volunteer, or in-kind. There are some areas where funding is generous
> and full support for OA via article processing fees may well be feasible.
> However, in many scholarly areas funding is much less generous, and
> publishers may NEED to reserve commercial rights. Even with the well-funded
> areas, if publishers develop hybrid revenue streams by reserving commercial
> rights, that might well make it possible to offer more affordable article
> processing fees to academia.
>
> Regarding CC abandoning NC: I am trying to recommend to CC (if I can get
> registered to speak) that they adjust the licenses rather than abandoning
> NC. For example, if there is concern that people are interpreting NC as not
> including educational rights, then add a statement to the NC license along
> the lines of "Education is not commercial". Not only would this improve the
> NC license, in the long term I believe that this will add to support for
> good overall copyright licensing on an international level, as education
> should be understood as noncommercial, period. If CC abandons NC, I would
> have to abandon CC. (I would like to note that I am a strong supporter of
> CC today - I speak out for CC, use the licenses, encourage others to do so,
> and contribute to the annual donation campaign).
>
> While we are on the topic of CC licensing, some comments about the other
> elements:
>
> SA: this is necessary to ensure that authors, their publishers and
> institutions, who give away their works have access to derivatives built on
> them. This is not just a third-world problem. I hear that there have been
> severe funding cuts to higher education even in the UK.
>
> Noderivatives: there are valid scholarly reasons why noderivatives may
> sometimes be a superior license. One example is the area at the boundary of
> pharmacology and toxicology. Here, relying on an imperfect translation
> could kill people. Another is that in some scholarly areas, such as
> literature and art, creative expression is the very heart of the
> scholarship. It strikes me that many scholars would be more likely to share
> their work if they felt comfortable that they had the right to insist on no
> derivatives.
>
> I hope this message gets through to the list - my last two messages to the
> open science list don't seem to have gone through.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
> http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/**heather-morrison/<http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/>
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.**blogspot.com<http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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