Shameful: American Society Of Civil Engineers Issues DMCA Notices Against Academics For Posting Their Own Research
from the for-the-encouragement-of-learning dept
As we've pointed out many times in the past, the originally stated purpose of copyright law was to encourage the sharing of scientific knowledge for the purpose of learning. The first copyright act in the US was actually entitled "for the encouragement of learning." Yet, as copyright law has evolved, it's frequently been used to make learning much more difficult. Just a few months ago, we covered how publishing giant Elsevier had started to demand that academics who had published their own research on Academia.edu take down those works. As we noted then, while big journal publishers often demand that academics hand over their copyright in order to get published, they usually would either grant an exception for an academic to post their own work, or at least look the other way when the academics would do so. And many, many academics obviously decided to post their own papers to the web.As TorrentFreak reports, the American Society of Civil Engineers has taken it up a level, hiring one of the more well-known copyright enforcement companies out there, Digimarc, to go around issuing DMCA takedown on academics uploading their own works:
Yes, basically, ASCE has declared that its own academic authors are a bunch of pirates. If you're a civil engineer, now is the time to start looking seriously at alternatives for publishing beyond the ASCE. Declaring war on the academics who provide you all of your content for free, just seems like a bad idea.The publisher has hired the piracy protection firm Digimarc to police the internet for articles that are posted in the wild. As a result, universities all across the globe were targeted with takedown notices, which were also sent to Google in some cases.
The list of rogue researchers is long, and includes professors from MIT, Stanford, Northwestern University, University of Washington, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin–Madison and many international universities.
Torrentfreak notes that it appears that some universities have resisted these takedown demands. Stanford, MIT and UC Berkeley still have the works in question up. Other schools, however, have quickly caved in. University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Texas-Austin appear to have pulled down the works. Because, you can't support the progress of science if your damn academics are giving away their works for free... instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for access to basic knowledge and research.
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Filed Under: academia, copyright, dmca, papers, research, takedowns
Companies: asce, digimarc
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Civil?
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It's not their work once they sign it away.....
The scientists don't need to use the publishers -- the Internet is available to them already-- but they choose to. So they should live with their agreement.
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Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
But they do. Not for any technical reason, but for political reasons. Publishing in these journals is required to maintain your career status. "Publish or perish."
It's a cultural problem resulting from tradition that began back when these journals actually did perform a valuable service. The journals don't provide any value now that can't be easily replaced, but the culture remains.
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Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
And then there's the issue of deciding which work is worthy. The review process takes time and effort too. The editors need to be paid or they'll do something else with their time. All of that comes from the copyright-driven subscription fees.
The scientists have had the power to change things for the longest time. They create the culture. It's not handed down to them from some dictator. If they don't want to publish in a journal, they can do that. But most the tenured profs continue to use journals and that speaks volumes.
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Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
That's not true with the scientists I've worked with. They are required to submit ready-to-print articles. The journals don't actually do much editing or typesetting.
"And then there's the issue of deciding which work is worthy."
Yes, which is currently done by the scientists themselves anyway.
"The scientists have had the power to change things for the longest time"
Not by themselves. There are more players in this than the scientists -- there are also the administrators and granting bodies. However, even if it were entirely in the scientists hands, it's incorrect to handwave this as if it were an easy thing. Changing a culture is really difficult. If it weren't, then our society would have solves lots more of our problems.
" If they don't want to publish in a journal, they can do that."
True, but that is still often what is called "career suicide". That's changing, slowly, but isn't changed yet.
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Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
Shocked! I'm utterly shocked!.......k well, no.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
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Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
Bullshit. Speaking as an academic AND as someone who spent his teenage years as a printer's apprentice, i.e., I have actually set type -- this is complete bullshit.
Papers are written using templates that cause them to be "typeset", per se, in publication-ready form. The only "typesetting" that journal publishers need to do is the table of contents and (maybe) a letters-to-editor section.
Papers are edited by the same group of people who do the writing: academics. After all, who better to catch mistakes than one's peers?
The valued-added by ASCE here is small and rapidly diminishing.
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Re: Re: Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
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Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
For the most part, they do.
... said he, out of his ass.
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Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
So shut the fuck up about important services, these publishers are pure parasites, leeches that live on the work of the scientists. They do fuck all outside of writing a bill for access!
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Re: It's not their work once they sign it away.....
are they still pouring hot lead into molds for that, or what ? ? ?
you are a joke, boob...
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Serious question
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It sucks because it sucks
The problem is not the copyright laws but the willingness to sign the contracts. Academics should be supporting open access of their work, and until that changes the publishers are going to exploit the situation.
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Re:
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Let's be fair
I checked the University of California records: http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2014/03/asce-takedown-notices/
The authors signed away their right to publish the ASCE proof-read and edited version of their paper. They had the legal standing to post their peer-reviewed paper, just not the paper with the "value" (as tenuous as that may be) that ASCE provided (formatting and copy-editing). That's a really generous offer that is pretty uncommon from what I've read about other research journals.
As a member of a similar associations (ASHRAE - American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers; and the Illuminating Engineering Society), this comes up routinely in our industry. Engineers generally don't have funding to conduct these studies that later get published. These professional societies use the paper-fees to put together a big pot of money that funds a lot of worth-while activities:
1. Funding Papers & Research (they give a lot of research grants)
2. Putting together Scholarships (investing in the future of the profession)
3. Hosting/Coordinating Technical Committees (with donated time and usually airfare) to foster the art and science of engineer
4. Lobbying elected and appointed officials to do what's best (although a professional society's checkbook is not nearly as deep as a corporation's, it does make laws/regulations actionable to some degree or another)
I encourage Mike to revise the title of this article to be less sensationalist and improve the accuracy (and maybe doing a little fact-checking, which I accomplished with 2 minutes and a little Google-fu).
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as a scientist...
The ASCE just violated this social norm in a rather odious, apparently money-grubbing sort of way. Whether intentional or not, the publisher just told their authors--their lifeblood, really--that they are pirates. Particularly given that many academics are already royally pissed at publishers and that open access publications are on the rise, I don't see how this could be a win for the ASCE. Do they have the right to enforce their contract? Sure. Is it smart? Almost certainly not.
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Re: as a scientist...
What you did not write in your item is that authors do preserve rights to share their work freely with peers. what they cannot do is to systematically post articles so that it creates secondary repositories that will long terms literally kill ASCE business model. Furthermore, authors can actually post their peer-reviewed manuscripts without restrictions. Why didn't they do that? Perhaps because the final version is a much more elegant version to post which is proof that there is an added value brought in by publishers. Or perhaps, more likely, because they didn't know what their posting rights were, which is understandable since publishers are sometime confused themselves on the subject. In any case I think those authors are less upset than yourself in having received a removal request and I am sure they probably understand the issues with a greater depth than you have shown
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Re: Re: as a scientist...
In my experience, the "final versions" are rarely, if ever, more elegant or polished than the manuscripts. It seems quite likely to me that neither the researchers nor the ASCE could tell the difference, leading to the dispute here. So, the only value the ASCE adds is distribution... and now there are better ways to distribute, so they're obsolete! There's no longer any good reason to give ASCE the sole power to distribute (or Elsevier, or anyone else). Open Access does just fine.
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BTW, I lay the root of the problem at the feet of authors who seem inclined to sign any sheet of paper given to them. As counsel to a private research laboratory every journal contract was treated merely as an invitation to negotiate, and in no instance was publication ever denied.
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Re:
NO, it is The They (tm) who have BROKEN the social contract, who have appropriated the legislatures and the law itself to SERVE THEIR INTERESTS (the 1%), NOT THE INTERESTS OF US ALL...
in effect, WE HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE, we have NO 'champions' who are pushing back against the 1% dominating the law and life; ALL the 'champions' are working for the 1%, not the 99%...
they have pushed copyright/trademarks to an INSANE period of protection, PROTECTION WE 99% do not get to enjoy, do we ? ? ?
the 'law' has been so corrupted and one-sided, ANY APPEAL to law and morality is a FALSE appeal; the 'law' is a RIGGED GAME the 99% will lose virtually every time...
finally, there is no effective recourse: the 'law' is stacked against us, the 'law' is harnessed to the 1% and does their bidding, the 'law' is used to oppress us, NOT TO FREE US...
their arguable illegal -and DEFINITELY immoral- EULAs, and arbitration clauses, etc DO NOT SERVE TO 'DEFEND' us 99%, but merely to shield the 1%...
yeah, if ONLY we dirty, filthy freetards would follow the law and be good citizens, everything would be okay...
(and another authoritarian non-thinker is outed...)
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Stop using these kind of greedbags and put together Open Source.The youth will so much appreciate this and respect you.
The knowledge will in fact flow !!!
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Re:
They are. Scientists generally loathe these journals and have increasingly been working to replace them with something better. It's a long hard road, though, and can't be done quickly. But it is happening.
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It had to happen eventually
But no. They don't seem troubled at all. "They have the right", I hear. "It's their property."
LIES. There is no "property" in publication. Copyright can only exist as a special privilege, created by state fiat, and I see now that the actual effects of granting this privilege are what we see today: the exact opposite of the effect we desired. (See also: patents)
There is no way to balance this system. There is no way to reform it. We should reject the very idea. I think it's time to start pirating ASCE papers.
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nice story, but
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Re: nice story, but
Remember that the victims here are the academics who were forced to un-publish their own papers. These were papers they made themselves, delivering the knowledge they had worked to bring forth. Are you saying that these people haven't paid, or that they aren't smart?
Or are you saying that it was wrong of them to publish? Was it wrong for them to freely share their own knowledge? Your words seem to imply this: if someone can't afford to pay ASCE for access, then they don't deserve to have knowledge. Is that what you mean?
Like many others, I have received much of my knowledge for free. My parents never billed me, my college education was covered by scholarships, my libraries only fine me if I return books late, and most of the websites I visit cost me nothing. I have received free gifts in abundance, and I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, I try to pay it forward, so that other people can learn for free. Does that bother you?
These academics tried to add to the pool of free knowledge in the world, and they were denied. I don't see justice in that. Do you?
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Re: nice story, but
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