Do We Really Need Copyright For Academic Publishing?
from the worth-thinking-about dept
QuestionCopyright has an interesting article about the role that open access might play in opening up China to new ideas. But what really caught my attention was the following section:
Because copyright originated from publishing, it is is primarily concerned with protecting the expression of works – whereas the ideas expressed are not copyrightable. In other words, it is illegal to copy or reproduce a work without authorization, but perfectly fine to borrow one's ideas by paraphrasing. Yet, if you talk with any scholars or professors in China, you will find that most authors are more concerned if others borrow their ideas without giving them credit. It is not a big deal if their papers or journal articles are posted online by others without their authorization. Some of the authors may even be pleased to know their ideas are more widely circulated so long as the works are attributed to their names and are not altered without their permission.
I think this raises an important issue. Perhaps copyright protects the wrong thing for academics: what they really care about is credit for the ideas their papers contain, not how they phrased them.
This analysis echoes suggestions I've heard elsewhere that one approach to reforming copyright would be to abolish it completely for academic publishing. Not only do scholars not need copyright for their work, if it's ideas not expression that counts, it gets in the way by putting obstacles between them and the research of others.
Moreover, as the QuestionCopyright article points out, fully opening up research would also be the best way of tackling what seems to be the chief fear of academic authors: plagiarism. More readers able to access more works would mean a greater likelihood that unacknowledged copying between them would be noticed and exposed.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: academic publishing, copyright
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
About Academics
Academic researchers and writers (I am one) who publish their works in journals are only concerned with two things: that we are given proper credit, and, in the case of non-creative works, that the integrity of the writing is respected and not modified. This is to guarantee the integrity of our research, which is extremely important to us. Plagiarism is another different thing from copyright, although both are inevitably associated.
I have nothing against opening up my works to the public. Quite the contrary, the academy would greatly benefit on its basis.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This is a nice example
See chapter 4.1 in Escobars work (2001 - http://mue.music.miami.edu/thesis/margarita_escobar/margarita_escobar_thesis.pdf) and compare it to Sheirers original paper (1998 - http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Schei98-beats.pdf)
The interesting thing is that this is a clear case of plagiarism.
It is however not so clear whether Escobar should be allowed to copy the entire paper. In this case I feel it would have been much more appropriate to rewrite the chapter as follows: 'Below I copied the paper by Scheirer entirely, because it is so interesting'.
Now, following this techdirt article where the suggestion is made that the 'idea' counts, not the writing. That could be interpreted that Escobar should not be allowed to communicate the content of the ideas created by Sheirer. That is of course utter nonsense.
What is necessary is for people to grow up: copy all you want, but give due credit. And because that last part is not part of the standard equipment given by humans when they are born, it must be taught.
In this particular case, the student was at fault by suggesting that she/he wrote the work. The supervisor, who should have known that this was a copy, should have told the student not to do this and that she/he would only pass if proper credit was given.
Any thoughts on this ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
THINK OF THE CHILDREN, or ur a evil commie/pirate/thief/etc.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Senate Approves Intelligence Bill
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: About Academics
Actually it once did protect the integrity of the work. In the early days of printing the authors' complaint was usually that pirated copies were inaccurate rather than that they were a financial loss. The public also had an interest in getting a copy that had the author's approval because that provided a guarantee that there were no significant mistakes. In those days the copyright mark provided a certificate of authenticity.
If you look at the structure of early copyright law it was clearly designed to protect the effort involved in accurately typesetting first print run of a book (the initial 14 years) with the option of renewal for a reprint (if the author still lived and could therefore certify the correctness of the new version).
Perfect digital reproduction renders all of this irrelevant. It follows that copyright has outlived its original purpose. It should be replaced by something that protects the contractual rights of creators when work is commissioned, guarantees credit is assigned accurately and prevent plagiarism.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Moral Rights
This analysis echoes suggestions I've heard elsewhere that one approach to reforming copyright would be to abolish it completely for academic publishing. Not only do scholars not need copyright for their work, if it's ideas not expression that counts, it gets in the way by putting obstacles between them and the research of others."
1) You've clearly never heard of moral rights / droit moral, which is prevelant n civilian jurisdictions (and several commonwealth jurisdictions like Canada) and protects THIS VERY THING (primilarily right of attribution & right of integrity). Abolishing copyright eliminates these rights for academics in countries that have them.
2) If copyright serves no useful purpose for academics, there is absolutely nothing stopping any academic or institution from releasing all of their research papers under an open access license or even dedicating it to the public domain. Suggesting that the whole system must be abolished to cater to a small, specialized segment that doesn't require it's protections when that same segment can opt out of the system voluntarily is non-sensical... It's like suggesting we abolish car insurance because people who don't drive don't need it, even when they're not required to get it (and suggests that this is more about the author and QuestionCopyright's anti-copyright agenda than about helping academics).
3) "More readers able to access more works would mean a greater likelihood that unacknowledged copying between them would be noticed and exposed." Really? Do we know that more people read access open access materials than traditionally published materials accessible via proprietary databases? Do we know if they detect plagiarism more often? This is a pretty bald assertion to make without any actual facts to back it up. Again, it's nonsensical to call for all of copyright to be abolished merely because there is a "likelihood" that more plagiarism might possibly be detected theoretically (funny that copyright opponents constantly complain that copyright policy is not sufficiently evidence based but seem to have no problem making their own assertions based on suppositions without any actual facts to back them up).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Plagiarism as an Inside Job (response to Richard, #6)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Research Funding Source
TechDirt has long pointed out the problems with the Bayh-Dole Act. Wikipedia Bayh-Dole Act page.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Moral Rights
Moreover, because the publishing process typically includes the peer review process, publishing papers and findings outside these copyrighted journals immediately lessens their importance and weight - regardless of the quality of the work.
Copyright not only serves no useful purpose in academia, it actually has unnecessarily locked the peer review process in the publishing/copyrighting process, and thus the free flow of ideas/innovative ways of approaching topics and problems/research for the greater good has been stifled and the course of science immeasurably distorted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
The fact that publishing companies (and record labels) among others, basically force their clients to relinquish their copyright is, as far as I am concerned, just another form of extortion (same as with their mass lawsuits/settlement letter).
As someone who was probably one of the biggest copyright supporters around when the Napster case hit, I can no longer support these people in good faith. To me, they are just a bunch of criminals, and at this stage I am all in favor of doing away with copyright completely.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: About Academics
I won't challenge you in your allegation, it is correct. However, that was not the reason for the creation of Copyright. If you look at both, the Anne Statute, and the Constitution of the U.S., the primary reason why there was copyright was not "protection" of the integrity of an author's work, but rather the creation of incentives to promote the arts and sciences. How? By creating the artificial scarcity I'm talking about. Whether copyright could be used (in a practical sense) for protecting a work's integrity is secondary.
In fact, it is so secondary, that authors today cannot "protect" the integrity of their own works once they sign a deal with a publisher, record or movie company ... despite the fact that their works are copyrighted. This is because copyright operates in the commercial arena, and it is primordially commercial ...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Moral Rights
The comparison with car insurance doesn't work. I can't opt out of copyright, and neither can you -- because when someone accepts the state's offer of a monopoly on a work they created, we *all* are opted in to that monopoly. This is just as true when that acceptance happens under pressure, as is the case with academic presses.
I'm not sure what kind of evidence would satify you that open distribution prevents plagiarism; I have to admit, this seems self-evidently obvious to me. Do you find it interesting that in the area where open distribution is most prevalant and consistent -- open source software -- there is virtually no plagiarism problem, even though there is plenty of motivation to plagiarize?
Anyway, if you accept that there is a lack of evidence either way, then shouldn't we default to non-restriction instead of restriction?
Finally, get civil. No, seriously. There's no need to conduct conversation in this manner: "You've clearly never heard of moral rights / droit moral..." Really? The poster has "clearly" never heard of it? I suspect the contrary, and that the more likely explanation is he considered it irrelevant to his point, which it is, since most of the so-called droits morals have little to do with copying and are really about attribution. Getting them attached to publisher-driven copyright law was one of the great triumphs of intellectual obfuscation on the part of the publishing industry.
Don't assume your interlocutors are idiots, please. They just disagree with you. So far, I find them more convincing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: About Academics
That was not the reason - that was the excuse!
The reason was the publishers' desire to re-establish the printing monopoly they had been granted in the 16th century.
My point was about the motivations of authors - who certainly didn't benefit directly from the form of copyright that existed before 1710 - to back the publishers cause. If you read the surviving comments of authors about these issues from the 16th and 17th centuries you will find that the integrity of the work seems to be the main issue for them at that time. Here, for example, is Martin Luther
:
" Avarice now strikes / and plays this knavish trick on our printers
whereby others are instantly reprinting [our translation] / and are thus depriving us of our work
and expenses to their profit, / which is a downright public robbery /
and will surely be punished by God / and which is unworthy of any honest
Christian. It is not for my own sake, though, that I am concerned / since it was
freely that I received / and freely that I gave it, / and I ask for nothing in return:
/ Christ my Lord has repaid me for it many hundred thousand times over.
But this I must lament about avarice, / that these greedy and rapacious
pirate printers are handling our work carelessly. For, seeking only
their own profit, / they don't care much about the accuracy of what they are
reprinting, / and it has often happened to me / when reading their reprinted text / that
I found it so full of errors / that in many places I couldn't recognize my own work /
and had to correct it from scratch. / They just print it off quickly, as there's money to be made.
Whereas (if they were true printers) they surely ought to know from experience
that one can't be careful enough when it comes to such work / as printing.
/ Anyone who has ever tried such work / will bear witness to what I am saying /
about the amount of care that it demands."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yet, copyright (as we know it now) began as a commercial incentive for authors, so that they could be paid as their works were published. Yes, I recognize that something like "copyright" had to do with stationaries in Britain and their monopoly. Yet, copyright ***as we know now*** began with the Statute of Anne, and that's how the jurisprudence was established. I make this point because what is relevant for *today* at the legal level has to do with the actual jurisprudence which began in 1710. If the primary legal concern was to guarantee the words of the authors, then why only a temporary grant of that monopoly? Why the implied creation of the public domain? Once the work went to the public domain, by definition, the public could do anything they wanted with it ... right? Then why not assure copyright "forever" to guarantee the integrity of an author's work? Answer: because copyright in its original conception (i.e. since 1710) had little to do with the problem of the integrity of the works. From a jurisprudential standpoint, that became secondary. Copyright is just an incentive to promote culture, and the laws (jurisprudence) as originally created and designed for that purpose ... not to guarantee works' integrity.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
What about patents?
My take: Patents and copyrights alike, they're all about greed. And the money the holders can get through litigation is just another added bonus, and some, like RIAA and patent trolls, are building their business models on this, IMO.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Moral Rights
@Eo Nomine Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
1) You've clearly never heard of moral rights / droit moral, which is prevelant n civilian jurisdictions (and several commonwealth jurisdictions like Canada) and protects THIS VERY THING (primilarily right of attribution & right of integrity). Abolishing copyright eliminates these rights for academics in countries that have them.
I think most people who advocate reforming or abolishing copyright would like to keep the right of attribution and right of integraity in place. For example, Depoorter Ben, Holland Adam, and Somerstein Elizabeth, “Copyright Abolition and Attribution”, Review of Law & Economics 5, no. 3 (December 31, 2009), http://www.bepress.com/rle/vol5/iss3/art5.
2) If copyright serves no useful purpose for academics, there is absolutely nothing stopping any academic or institution from releasing all of their research papers under an open access license or even dedicating it to the public domain. Suggesting that the whole system must be abolished to cater to a small, specialized segment that doesn't require it's protections when that same segment can opt out of the system voluntarily is non-sensical... It's like suggesting we abolish car insurance because people who don't drive don't need it, even when they're not required to get it (and suggests that this is more about the author and QuestionCopyright's anti-copyright agenda than about helping academics).
Most scholars are not familiar with the copyright debate. Their primary concern is to get their works published and when the publishers ask them to sign whatever copyright agreement before they can publish their works, they usually do so without giving much thought to it. Recently, efforts are made to encourage scholars to add additional clause to the copyright agreement so they can legally share their own works with the general public. (e.g. SPARC Author Addendum) Nevertheless, authors may get apprehensive about this sort of legal details.
On the other hand, we do see quite a few academic authors who post their papers on their own websites and these papers are indexed by Google Scholar, which links the papers to such PDF files provided by the authors. In this way, the public may access the papers free of charge. Technically, the authors are breaking their copyright agreement with the publishers by doing this under the current copyright system.
Of course, academic paper is only a small segment of the copyrightable subject matter. Yet, we can only deal with one thing at a time. Software developers have long been battling to free their works from copyright restriction. And others have contributed user generated contents to sites like Wikipedia under Creative Commons. Even the newspaper and magazine articles have become freely available online competiting for the attention of readers. So the trend is pretty clear: with the digital technologies, more literate works have become freely accessible. With a great amount of public attention diverted to the FREE stuff online, academic papers may become increasingly obscure and the academic community more and more marginalized as a result of copyright restriction.
3) "More readers able to access more works would mean a greater likelihood that unacknowledged copying between them would be noticed and exposed." Really? Do we know that more people read access open access materials than traditionally published materials accessible via proprietary databases? Do we know if they detect plagiarism more often? This is a pretty bald assertion to make without any actual facts to back it up. Again, it's nonsensical to call for all of copyright to be abolished merely because there is a "likelihood" that more plagiarism might possibly be detected theoretically (funny that copyright opponents constantly complain that copyright policy is not sufficiently evidence based but seem to have no problem making their own assertions based on suppositions without any actual facts to back them up).
I am not aware of any empirical studies that may prove or disprove the claim that removing copyright restriction will reduce plagiarism. But consider the machanism of Turnitin, the largest software system for plagiarism detection. Basically, Turnitin takes the papers under review and checks them against a database of published papers the authors may copy from using natural language processing. The trouble with Turnitin is that, to avoid criticisms about copyright infringement, they keep the users in dark with regard to what database they use. An alternative to Turnitin would be to build an open-source plagiarism checking system that is free for all teachers and students. And to do that, we need open access to all academic papers in machine-readable forms.
So the case for plagiarism reduction is not about how many human readers will detect the cases of plagiarism but whether or not we can build a software sytem to do it. We have all the technologies available but copyright is the main obstacle.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The "Integrity of the Work" is solved by digital distribution.
This concern was entirely appropriate at the time, because printers were notoriously unreliable and, unless watched carefully, would often make erroneous copies: leave out entire chapters, add material of their own or from some other source, lower the quality of illustrative engravings or leave them out entirely, etc.
In the age of digital distribution, this concern doesn't really exist anymore. First, because making perfect copies every time is the default -- you have to work *harder* to make an imperfect copy, not the other way around. And second, because the same devices that allow us to copy also allow us to do automated comparisons, thus swiftly detecting when copies differ and how.
Thus in modern times, the only droit moral that remains is that of attribution, which, of course, we anti-monopolists have been wholly in favor of all along. The most clarifying thing a legislature could do for copyright today would be to pass a law covering attribution separately from copying.
So if such laws are necessary, by all means let's have them. However, note that crowd enforcement of attribution works pretty well in practice, so any new laws that cover attribution separately from copying should only fill in wherever common practice does not suffice by itself.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yes Alvin Phee
Alvin Phee, Cali
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: This is a nice example
Did Escobar write it in the first place and then allow Scheirer to take the credit on the basis that (s)he could re-use it later in her/his thesis?
That is quite a common scenario (although you would expect to see Escobar's name on the original paper).
[ link to this | view in thread ]