[open-science] [Open-access] Open Science Anthology published

Mon Jan 27 20:46:30 UTC 2014

I've been following this discussion with increasing bemusement. Frankly, it's getting ridiculous, at least in my humble opinion. A discussion such as this one about licensing and copyright only serves to demonstrate that copyright, once conceived as a way to stimulate and enable science and the arts, has degenerated into a way to frustrate, derange and debilitate knowledge exchange.

I'm not the first one to point out that absolutely anything, under any copyright licence or none, could be abused for evil purposes or, in more mild circumstances, lead to misunderstandings and accidental abuse. I agree with all those who said it.

The issue here is what science and scientific results stand for. Their purpose is emphatically not "to be copyrightable items". Copyright, invented to combat commercial abuse, has become a means of commercial abuse. The purpose of science and scientific results is to enrich the world's knowledge. Any commercial advantage – appropriate for industrially funded research – can be had by 1) keeping results secret (i.e. not publishing them), or 2) getting a patent. Science, particularly modern science, is nothing without a liberal exchange of ideas and information.  

Ideally, scientific publications are not copyrightable at all, and community standards take care of proper acknowledgement. We don't live in an ideal world, so we have to get as close as we can to that ideal, and that is by ameliorating the insidious pernicious effects of copyright with CC-Zero and CC-BY licences.

The existence of the NC rider or stipulation for CC licences is unfortunate and quite damaging. Mainly because of the vagueness and ambiguity of what 'commercial use' means. Ideas in published articles can be freely used for commercial purposes of any kind, as ideas are not copyrightable. Only "the way the ideas have been formulated" is covered by copyright, and thus by the NC clause in copyright licences. In my interpretation that means that most usage of published material that is not a straightforward selling of text or images can be freely done. But that's my interpretation. And that's exactly where it rubs, because all the NC clause does is introduce hypothetical difficulties and liabilities. As a result of which, NC practically means: "stay away from using this material, because you never know with all those predatory legal eagles around". In other words, it's virtually useless for modern, sophisticated scientific knowledge discovery, which doesn't just consist of reading papers any longer, but increasingly relies on the ability to machine-process large amounts of relevant information, as human ocular reading of even a fraction of the information is not possible anymore. At least not in most fast-moving areas of the sciences. Read this article, or similar ones, if you want to be convinced: "On the impossibility of being expert"  BMJ 2010; 341 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c6815 (Published 14 December 2010 – unfortunately behind a paywall).

The taxpayer angle ("must be open because the taxpayer paid for it"), leading to Kent Andersonian notions of knowledge protectionism ("results of research paid by US taxpayers should not be available to non-US citizens unless they pay for it"), is a most unfortunate, visceral and primitive reaction and a complete red herring. For many reasons, not least because the taxpayer, or vicariously the taxman, isn't the party that pockets any money payed for paywalled information. Besides, how far do you go? Americans not being allowed to stay alive due to a cure that was developed with public money in Switzerland unless they pay through the nose for it to the Swiss tax authorities? The "as-long-as-I-am-well-the-rest-of-you-can-go-to-hell" personality disorder. The whole idea is so against the ethos of science that those even thinking in that direction must be taken to be utterly and entirely unsuitable to any role in the scientific community. 

Access control and restriction via copyright was at best a necessary evil in the print era; the 'necessary', though, has disappeared in the web environment.

Have a nice day!

Jan Velterop

On 27 Jan 2014, at 18:55, Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca> wrote:

> hi Mark,
> 
> Under automatic copyright a copyright holder has the exclusive right to authorize derivatives. Mike's e-mail to the list falls under copyright, so yes, you could make the argument that I have infringed his rights (both the exclusive right to authorize derivatives and possibly his moral rights). On the other hand, an argument can be made that this use is perfectly legitimate under fair use / fair dealing as quotation for the purpose of criticism.
> 
> The situation would be similar with this quotation, a derivative of Bjoern's words copied below:
> 
> Brembs, B. on "Mike Taylor words with Heather Morrison's good manners": "This is a perfect example of why we should NOT have CC-BY. It's not working!"
> 
> My purpose in creating and sharing this example is scholarly criticism. I understand that my example does not reflect the meaning Brembs intended. However, if people are using CC licenses to grant blanket rights to create derivatives of their works to anyone, anywhere, it is possible that people creating adaptations may think they understand the words of the original author but the original author might not agree with their interpretation. I am using this illustration to explain why not every scholar is keen to grant blanket permission to anyone, anywhere to create derivatives of their work. 
> 
> When discussing open access policy with respect to derivatives, it may be helpful to realize that "derivative" is not the same as "good, useful derivative". A derivative work can be an improvement, benign, or harmful. Either improvements or harms can be negligible or significant.
> 
> If some scholars and publishers wish to experiment with blanket derivatives, that's their right. What I object to is policy requiring everyone to participate in the experiment. 
> 
> best,
> 
> Heather MOrrison
> 
> 
> 
> On 2014-01-27, at 12:03 PM, Mark MacGillivray <mark at cottagelabs.com>
>  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 27 Jan 2014 16:58, "Bjoern Brembs" <b.brembs at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Monday, January 27, 2014, 5:27:45 PM, you wrote:
>> >
>> > > Mike Taylor wrote:  "Heather, with all due respect this is complete nonsense".
>> >
>> > >
>> > > The actually respectful derivative:  ""Heather, with all
>> > > due respect I disagree". (attribution: Mike Taylor, good
>> > > manners contributed by Heather Morrison).
>> >
>> > Perfect! If this is this an example of why we should NOT have CC BY, it's not working.
>> 
>> Indeed. And now I am free to compare the two, and decide if Heather was correct to imply that Mike was disrespectful, or if she misrepresented him.
>> 
>> Although, did Heather just infringe Mikes reserved rights?
>> 
>> Mark
>> >
>> > Bjoern
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Björn Brembs
>> > ---------------------------------------------
>> > http://brembs.net
>> > Neurogenetics
>> > Universität Regensburg
>> > Germany
>> >
> 
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