[open-science] [SCHOLCOMM] Libre open access, copyright, patent law, and, other intellectual property matters

john wilbanks jtw at del-fi.org
Wed Mar 21 16:47:44 UTC 2012


Nope, Scientific Reports fails every single definition of OA. Non 
commercial restrictions = FauxA, not OA. Just because Nature calls it OA 
doesn't make it so, and when an author retains copyrights but not actual 
rights to do stuff, the copyright status is not relevant. Usage is what 
matters, not who the owner is...when the owner has signed away rights to 
allow usage.

The community knows this, which is why SR has just over 300 papers after 
a year and plos one has 14,000+ per year.

jtw

On 3/21/2012 8:10 AM, Heather Morrison wrote:
> John,
>
> Would you agree with me that Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports provides a good role model? Scientific Reports is a fully open access journal. Authors are offered two creative commons license choices, Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike or Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives.
>
> In either case, it is the author, not the publisher, who retains copyright. Here are some of the details (from http://www.nature.com/srep/faqs/openaccess-faqs.html):
>
> Who retains copyright of the open access articles?
>
> Authors retain copyright for their article, with content licensed under one of two Creative Commons licences. The author can choose to opt for:
>
> Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The author will thereby permit dissemination and reuse of the article, and so will enable the sharing and reuse of scientific material. It does not, however, permit commercial exploitation or the creation of derivative works without specific permission. To view a copy of this licence visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
>
> The other choice is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which allows readers to alter, transform, or build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work under the same or similar licence to this one. The work must be attributed back to the original author and commercial use is not permitted. To view a copy of this licence visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
>
> Comment: my interpretation is that data or text mining would be allowed with either option. What is not permitted is resale, which I consider a sensible option for authors and publishers alike. NPG has also committed to contributing $20 to Creative Commons for every article CC licensed, which strikes me as a very good role model. So, too, is offering authors a choice of license. Much as I like PLoS, as an author when I get around to publishing I would likely consider Scientific Reports over PLoS ONE because of the license choices.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
>
> On 2012-03-21, at 7:48 AM, john wilbanks wrote:
>
>> We must think *strategically* and not *academically*.
>>
>> It isn't helpful to frame the text mining debate in copyright terms. Text mining is a contractual problem, not a copyright problem, but because publishers insist on layering text mining prohibitions on top of copyright licenses, they have conflated the two in a way that libre open access can untangle.
>>
>> Here's an example of how elsevier does this, but they're hardly alone.
>> http://www.mpdl.mpg.de/nutzbed/MPG_Elsevier.pdf
>>
>> Either they have to stop bundling prohibitions on text mining with licenses, stop using DRM to enforce prohibitions, and stop chilling bulk downloading by text miners without threatening lawsuits (which then we can use your arguments to defend, in court, against their army of lawyers, using our massive financial advantage as an open movement against a bunch of multinational corporations with arms-dealing resources), or we need libre OA to include text mining as a strategic goal of the overall OA movement.
>>
>> For me the choice is pretty clear. Expecting publishers to unbundle text mining from their licensing agreements and eliminate DRM is magical thinking, and the primary legal use arguments for text mining are only good as defenses *after* one has been sued, not prospective rights one can claim to prevent injunction. See lessig: fair use is the right to call a lawyer and nothing more.
>>
>> We need explicit rights to text mine that obviate the language publishers use to prevent it. Leveraging copyright law to prevent them from adding those preventions is better strategy than planning to beat back the copyright cartel in court, IMHO.
>>
>> IANAL, YMMV, etc.
>>
>> jtw
>>
>>> 2012/3/20 Heather Morrison<hgmorris at sfu.ca>:
>>>> A post on libre open access, copyright, patent law, and other intellectual
>>>> property matters. In brief, I argue that text and data mining materials on
>>>> the open web does not require special permissions. This has implications for
>>>> understanding what needs to happen to make libre open access a reality.
>>>> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2012/03/copyright-for-expression-of-ideas.html
>>>>
>>>> Comments welcome.
>>
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>
>

-- 
------
john wilbanks
@wilbanks
http://del-fi.org




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