Slashdot Mirror
95 (thousand) Theses (for sale)
"I am shocked that that this company is engaging in what amount to piracy of my work. Actually, it's worse than that since they are offering it for sale. Imagine the lawsuits and jailtime I would get (a la FBI Warning) if I burned a few hundred CDs of the latest movie release and sold them on the Internet.
"I imagine a great deal of Slashdot readers have completed graduate work. I just wonder what they make of this?"
Well, we'll see. Contentville is funded by CBS, NBC, a huge book distributor and a database aggregator - it launched last month. These companies are in Congress right now lobbying for a law to protect databases - that is, to make re-using information from places such as Contentville illegal. Not just copying the information, but even using any of the data or facts from databases would be illegal. A number of database-protection bills are in Congress right now, and if one of them passes (very likely), the poster above won't be able to make use of his own thesis without paying Contentville - since Contentville went to the effort of compiling their database, and the law would protect that effort.
Steven Brill, so-called "media watchdog", is just in the process of settling with thousands of freelance writers whose work he also, uh, appropriated.
It looks to me like a crystal-clear violation of the No Electronic Theft Act, passed a few years ago. Will Steven Brill go to jail for not more than three years? No. He's a "media watchdog", and only "pirates" go to jail. (Aside to Steve: if the NYT or Washington Post start referring to you as a pirate, best flee the country - the FBI will take an interest in the case then.)
Contentville. We get our Content the old-fashioned way - by stealing it.
"Information wants to bring fees."
We defend Napster, and tear these people to shreds =) Doesn't work both ways, guys. ;p
Oh, I forgot, RIAA is evil.
In other words, you get jack shit because no such agreement has been made.
A couple points that most of the folk here either miss because a) they're too busy being alarmed and disturbed, b) they just don't know or c) a combination of the two: * In almost all cases, the academic institue for which they were research is produced has unlimited rights to the research works. There are some exceptions where the author actually retains copyright ownership without rights given to the school. There are other cases where a Governement or Corporation that fund the research take sole ownership of the copyright work afterwards in so much as it relates to patents and application of ideas in the document. * When a non-profit, academic organization gains unrestricted rights to IP, that IP is generally immediately available for distribution through various channels. When I started work on a number of my research topics, I start by ordering copies of related dissertations. When you are affiliated with a university, many other universities will send you copies of dissertations for free or a reasonably low price. The coolest universities put their dissertations online now-a-days. Click and download either .ps or .pdf for free. Makes research simple.
* The academic research is done in the interest of advancing the academic community. As such, anyone inside and outside of the academic community can use the information to further their academic or commercial endeavors. What you cannot do, is claim sole rights of execution of the patentable material in academic documents. That's why prior art from an academic institue invalidates a patent.
* The database laws in congress cannot violate current copyright holders rights or give the database builder sole rights to information in the public domain. Not only would this violate previous laws (ie, Title 17), it would violate international law. Not something the House of representatives can do. If such a law wasn't vetoed, the first court to get to it would shred it.
* There is nothing new about repackaging public domain and academic works for sell. This practice has been done by every publishing company ever to print the works of a long dead poet. There's generally a copyright thrown in the front of the book. It's a bit confusing as it doesn't actually cover the content so much as the forward, index, table of contents, update graphics, annotations, translations and layout.
* If you don't want to pay money for the layout printing and such that this website provides, which I completely agree with, there are other sites that provide theses and dissertations for free:
- http://www.ndltd.org/
- http://www.theses.org/
* Here are a couple that provide public domain works as well:
- http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/
- http://www.cs.indiana.edu/metastuff/bookfaq.html
* There is no reason to GPL academic works. Just give them to the public domain. Amazingly, it's worked pretty well since Padua opened its doors. Universities are built upon the idea that information should be free. GPL is just a new attempt to say the same thing (IMO, doesn't do as good a job).
&ru
I understand some Universities get you to sign over copyright or
other rights: the University of Alblerta requires the following
University of Alberta Library release form -- this is verbatim
and in full from my MA thesis:
Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Library
to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell
such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research
purposes only.
The author reserves all other publication and other rights in
association with the copyright in the thesis, end except as
hereinbefore provided neither the thesis nor any substantial
portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any
material form whatever without the author's prior written consent.
That certainly does not sound like I have given away rights for third
parties to print and sell my thesis -- it sounds like I assigned that
specific right to the University of Alberta Library, and no one else,
nor does it appear to entail the U of A the right to transfer
reproduction, distribution, or resale rights to other parties. Yet,
UMI, and thus, contentville have it listed for sale.
Or do I misunderstand the relevant rights and laws in play here?
Some would go farther to say that record labels are evil and the actual artists don't get any money anyway, blah blah blah, and with dissertations it's actually people stealing from the little guy, not the evil corporation. I don't know if that argument is valid or not, but just because napster (or gnutella, or whatever) allows people to distribute illegally copied materials doesn't make the technology itself illegal.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I have to be alarmed whenever I see bits of legal boilerplate like 'X owns all content on its (aggregated, database, pirated) website and use is prohibited unless you get licensing from us'. Common sense would seem to indicate that if they just gathered up public stuff they can't really do that- but common sense doesn't always describe the world around us, and good faith is in even shorter supply. I honestly thought the people holding mp3 patents were going to only go after software authors- silly me! Turns out they are only overlooking me, the musician-type person- and will happily clobber me with lawyers and demand $15,000 and one cent minimum per download if I'm seen making mp3s of my own music available on my own website. But CD rippers can do that free, because they're not a business! ;P
furrfu... furrfu phoo phoo...
Because you only paid $50?
(Kidding.)
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
First, slashdot isn't a single entity. It's possible that some of the people upset at Contentville also don't like Napster.
Second, in this particular example there is consistency. Napster makes copyrighted material available for free. Contentville makes material available for a fee.
People who approve of both Napster and Contentville are pushing for free information in all possible forms and this is entirely consistent.
Mind you, if someone asked, I'd be reasonably willing to pass on a copy. This has happened, exactly once.
If I were relucant to do so, or someone interested in the MCNF problem couldn't find me, then it might well be worth $30 to them to get a copy of the thesis.
I would consider that price fairly outrageous, at around $0.21 per page, but while the price is fairly high, it's not likely to be a spectacular "profit centre" that I'd expect personally to rake in money over.
If I "went into business" selling copies of theses, printed as one-offs, $30 per thesis isn't an outrageous rate; I expect it would cost $15 a pop to search the microfilms and set it up for printing.
It's undoubtedly legal; it's not a "Napster-like" situation. And if my thesis proved to be a "best seller," I do have copyright so that I could sell it for a price undercutting UMI's pricing.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Did you even bother to find out the views of the original poster about Napster? The original poster might vehemently protest against piracy via Napster--or maybe not. But I'm betting you had no idea when you posted your diatribe.
:^) Plus, this would essentially be plagarism, and if the person in question were caught, then, again, that's their fault. If they're stupid enough to cheat instead of actually working for their grade, more power to 'em--we'll see how long they last in the real world.
Quite frankly, if anything I wrote is there, they can have it--it won't help me anymore, and if someone is stupid enough to use any paper of mine, that's their fault.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
They sure own student produced works, (eg BSD anyone?)
It would be easy for these content people to get blanket permission from a few Uni's. Worse, you may not own your own work at all, or have rights to sign away to others...
Sucky but possible
--
$you = new YOU;
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
By wholesale posting of their copyright and trademark notice, are you in violation of the copyright they have on the copyright agreement?
Did I just say that?
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
From the UMI agreement form I have to sign to get my PhD:
etc. etc.
Seems pretty clear cut to me - nothing illegal is going on here. If you signed the UMI agreement when you submitted your diss, then contentville are free to distribute it.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Of course not. The author of a particular change is always responsible for that change, they can't just call their changed version the same with a different version number, they can only make a derivative work which is also under the GPL but they are the responsible "owner". That means they only own their own parts for which they are responsible while the rest is unchanged. The original creator and owner of the original has nothing to do with their changes. That should be obvious.
If it was different, Microsoft could just rewrite the latest Linux kernel as a Visual Basic/Virus Builder script, and claim Linus Torvalds and the Linux community to be responsible for the next Outlook problem... ;)
-- Eavy (: Linux Is Not UniX
Really, though, it is a stupid site. I don't care one way or the other if it stays up or not, but anyone who buys from there is utterly and completely stupid. Most doctors will send you their thesis for free, and those who don't will send you their thesis for the cost of reproduction. If not, then this really would fall under the "abandonware" article that Slashdot posted recently.
The GPL would be protected from being sold? What kind of glue are you on?
<PARANOIA>
Well, personally, what I wonder is that why the heck everyone asks just this or something similiar every time Slashdot has a news story like this...
Does Microsoft have a FUD team whose purpose is to try make Slashdot look like a highly hypocritical site?
</PARANOIA>
(This was a feeble, feeble attempt at humor. I just kind of expected to see just that kind of message posted... =)
One could have raked in some serious points over at fuckedcompany for these guys as they got fucked twice in slightly over a month. More details are at http://www.fuc kedcompany.com/archives/search.cfm?search=contentv ille
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Because this is a horrenduous abuse of the system on the part of large corporations.
Before we had a situation where at least everyone could claim ownership of their own work.
While it is arguable whether any copyright laws should exist at all, what these companies are doing taking the old copyright where at least people could claim ownership for their own work if they wanted to and subvert it into a system where only big corporations have rights but not individuals.
In other words they do want to take freedom of information for themselves, but not for the 'little people' like us.
Paul M
"There are no innocent bystanders. What where they doing there in the first place"
Paul M
"There are no innocent bystanders. What where they doing there in the first place"
William S Burroughs
That's exactly the case. I can tell you for a fact that ContentVille gets at least some portion of it's dissertation content from UMI.
UMI's Digital Dissertations has (I believe) the largest set of dissertation abstracts in the world. They have every right to the content they have (although mistakes are made sometimes, so UMI will remove a thesis if they in fact determine they don't have rights to sell it).
So please moderate this up to +5, this is another Slashdot tempest in a teacup. If they have your dissertation, somewhere along the line *you* gave permission for it to be used.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Contentville is buying this data, either from UMI or from the University directly (I know they buy from UMI, not sure if they have other sources).
So (again) THEY PAID FOR THIS. You, the author, gave the university the right to do this. I understand it's fairly clear that the Univ. reserves the right to sell it (and they contract through UMI to do this, and UMI sells to ContentVille).
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
> They have no right to publish those theses unless they sign contracts with the people who wrote them. Plain and simple.
Which they did. Because UMI bought the publishing rights to the thesis from the author, and ContentVille is just reselling content for UMI.
So, the poster is wrong. He did give permission, many years ago when he signed a bunch of papers. I'm not sure if he can rescind permission now, but UMI would be the folks to contact about that one.
BTW -- UMI posts abstracts for many dissertations they don't sell, and the rules they have for what they can and cannot sell (and to whom) are really complex. Even if ContentVille lists something, it may not be available for sale to you (depends on the rights UMI has and where you live).
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
It's not naive. I know it for a fact. UMI is my biggest client, and I know Digital Dissertations and it's policies pretty well. On this point, it's all crystal clear.
This isn't an opinion, in other words. I'm stating the facts as I know them, at least for *this* content on ContentVille (I am aware there are issues with other material they sell).
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Of course there is never the thesis one is looking for: Hillary Rodham's Wellesley undergraduate dissertation that is rumored to be a blistering Marxist screed. That is content I would pay to get.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Hey, mine's only $29.95 unbound ($24.85 for Citizens Club members)! I feel so insulted!
By the way, if anyone buys the hardbound edition ($69.50), I'll autograph it for you.
-----------
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
...to sell my content.
/.ers are complaining?
My content is very similar to that being discussed. I do not own the copyrights. I have the ability to provide the data in a form that contentville can use. I can provide metadata which will allow contentville to set up a searchable database. I own the copyrights to the metadata. I sell it for the copyright owners and send them royalties.
Bell and Howell has been selling these theses for years in a database which only allowed access to the last two years' work, even though their data goes back much further (1890, I believe). As far as I know, they clearly have the rights to do so. They just do such an uninspired job of it that they hardly ever sell any, so nobody gets any royalties.
Now, we have somebody coming along with the idea that a good searchable database would be helpful. And
I wonder if a searchable database of theses would throw a wet blanket on fraudulent patent claims. Might help with the prior-art research. Might help establish definitively that the idea could be suggested by anyone.
Before we all go stomping on contentville for doing something that will help everyone, perhaps we should review a few facts. This kind of republishing has been going on -- done badly -- for years. Lexis-Nexis (Brill's big competitor in this) not only charges for downloads of the copyrighted material, but they also charge for search hits. (They used to have a special screen that warned you if your search for common words resulted in thousands of hits, which could result in those micropayments really adding up.) They also charge for the right to be able to search.
Brill's contentville is offering much higher royalties than Lexis-Nexis ever offered (although you don't get paid just for making your content available and you don't get all those micropayments on search results). Be careful about biting the hand which might one day feed you.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
When I saw this article, I looked at Contentville and found their disclamers about UMI. I then asked my boss (a Ph.d. in acoustics) what the real deal was. Here's his answer:
The way it works, your Ph.D. must be "published", and open to anyone who wants to see it. That usually means that you pay to have it bound, with a copy for yourself, one for your advisor, one for your university's library, and one copy sent
to the University of Michigan's "University Microfilms", where it is dutifully imaged and saved. The thing started because, let's say you saw a
reference to my thesis, maybe in a journal article I published, and you want a copy. It would be a pain in my backside to make a copy for you, and
everyone else that asked, even if you did offer to pay for my copying costs. So... University Microfilms (UM) was established a number of years
ago, so that when you called me, I could just send you to them, giving you the reference number to my thesis. In exchange for reducing my hassle, I
assigned UM the right to copy the thesis and sell it to you, at a small carrying fee. I get no royalty on what is my copyright work, but I also get
no hassle. Now just because someone buys a copy, they don't have license to plagiarize, only to use, etc. It also allows people to always get a copy of your thesis, even if you're dead or unreachable. The guy who complained doesn't realize what the deal is, unless he specifically refused to have
his work submitted, but most universities require it as part of the process, because they also, don't want the hassle. This just looks like the e-commerce version of something that has been in place for years (at least 35-40).
That settled it for me, at least...
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
Most slashdotters believe in copyright, I think. It's the foundation on which the GPL stands.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
I think the tone I hear is fairly consistant:
Individuals have rights. Corperations don't.
Or at least, don't get rights that individuals don't.
So stealing from an artist is wrong. (Besides, RIAA dosn't like you stepping on their turf.) Stealing thesis papers is also wrong.
I personally support micropayments, and hope I'm not the only one.
What's inconsistant about that?
--Dan
Let's see: stories that "elicit" strong "illicit" responses..."illicit" stories that "elicit" strong
responses...I dunno. Why can't we switch to a language that has regular spelling? Türkçe, anyone?
Er, what's wonderful is how every use of Napster is immediately illegal.
Of course if I *own* the CD that the song is on then I have the LEGAL right to MAKE a copy of that song. Now in my mind, and IANAL, getting that "copy" by getting it from another person is a perfectly legal process. However the RIAA case against Napster ignores this issue because, after all, it's much stickier than piracy. (Particularly since they've spending millions on lobbyists to destroy this legal ability)
So, in other words, what we have with Napster is not a simple case of piracy, but a very muddled case of piracy intermixed with (at least as far as I'm concerned) widespread sidestepping of that annoying step of compressing your a CD you already own into an MP3.
Now on the other hand what we have is individual writers who own their work (very different from musical artists since, until 35 years has passed, the artist does not OWN their work - their label does). Any time that work is reprinted the copyright holder is owed a royalty. However most universities require the owner to grant a fairly open license for personal, scientific, etc. research.
The question I haven't seen answered at this point is whether this database contains the thesis or a summary of it.
If it contains the thesis, then the copyright holder(s) are owed some fee for storing it in their database. And they're owed a royalty for every reprint (physical or electronic) this "service" makes, just as they get paid a royalty for reprints made through whatstheirfaces (the company that most people are published through).
The summary is a stickier issue, I think the copyright holder usually is forced to give free reign on reprinting that. So if they've just compiled a database full of summaries, then they should be in the clear. Maybe people sign over their rights for this stuff when they're published by whatstheirfaces?
Of course, if that is the case, and the legalities are in the clear... but exactly how useful is a database full of summaries?
Moof!
Let's see. I'm a taxpayer in the state of Minnesota, and the ration is more on the order of me paying 57% and the state picking up the other 43%. So, I'd say I paid for it.
Actually...
Depending on the state, any such policies may be unenforceable. My Assignment agreement with my employer (governed by the State of California), not only cites, but quotes section 2870 of the California Labor Code:
a) Any provisions in an employment agreement which provide that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
i) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
ii) result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
Since I actually live in Minnesota, I thought I'd look up our (similar) assignment law:
Chapter Title: EMPLOYMENT; WAGES, CONDITIONS, HOURS, RESTRICTIONS
Section: 181.78
Text:
181.78 Agreements; terms relating to inventions.
Subdivision 1. Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign or offer to assign any of the employee's rights in an invention to the employer shall not apply to an invention for which no equipment, supplies, facility or trade secret information of the employer was used and which was developed entirely on the employee's own time, and (1) which does not relate (a) directly to the business of the employer or (b) to the employer's actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development, or (2) which does not result from any work performed by the employee for the employer. Any provision which purports to apply to such an invention is to that extent against the public policy of this state and is to that extent void and unenforceable.
Subd. 2. No employer shall require a provision made void and unenforceable by subdivision 1 as a condition of employment or continuing employment.
Subd. 3. If an employment agreement entered into after August 1, 1977 contains a provision requiring the employee to assign or offer to assign any of the employee's rights in any invention to an employer, the employer must also, at the time the agreement is made, provide a written notification to the employee that the agreement does not apply to an invention for which no equipment, supplies, facility or trade secret information of the employer was used and which was developed entirely on the employee's own time, and (1) which does not relate (a) directly to the business of the employer or (b) to the employer's actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development, or (2) which does not result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
HIST: 1977 c 47 s 1; 1986 c 444
I also looked at my alma mater's policy, I didn't sign anything over (current policy, not the one while I was there).
Now, IANAL, but I'd like to think that MN and CA's employment agreement laws could be extended to academia, especially because students generally pay for their education, rather than get paid for it. In fact, since no pay occurs, I'd like to think that those assignments would also be null and unenforceable.
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
It looks like they simply pass the order to someone else.
Even better: Naster charges nothing; these guys have the oddacity to sell this stuff. I don't understand how this could be in any way legal (unless the company is operation in some extraterritorial capacity).
/got/ you your PhD, charge them royalties for the time you took to write it -- the the hourly rate your degree commands!
Here is a big question folx: How did Contentville get it's grubby little hands on your thesis in the first place? Are they bribing professors for photocoppies of their inbox? Don't the acedemic people care about the privacy and effort of their students?
...here's a random thought: Don't get Contentville to take down your papers; assuing your PhD thesis actually
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Q: Why do some Ph.D.'s seem to be unaware of the rules regarding UMI when they sign the legal papers? A: We're still rather hung-over from the post defense party.
Q: How long has UMI been selling theses? A: I learned about this shortly after entering grad school. This was way back before most of you were even a glint in your daddy's eye.
Q: Why would somebody want to buy your thesis? A: Most info in a thesis gets published. If it isn't published, then it is probably crap anyway. Even your advisor doesn't care.
Q: Any other reasons for buying? A: Yes, to obtain raw data contained in some Appendix that is too detailed to get published. This is bad because somebody might discover that the fundamental basis for your results may be bogus.
Q: Does getting a Ph.D. make you a responsible outstanding member of society? A: Bwaahahaha, hehe, um, why of course it does.
Q: What does getting your Ph.D. feel like? A: Like getting a get out jail card in monopoly.
Q: Why is it called piled higher and deeper? A: This is actually a misconception as there is no pile when you finish; you already swallowed all the shit.
Q: Do you have a Ph.D? You seem kind of cynical. A: Yeah, tell me about it.
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Welcome to the innovative web, running the most innovative company's most innovative web server. Apparently, IIS 5 allows you to set web alias permissions in such away so that cookies are required to access it, since the message is returned by IIS.
--
At UIUC, one of the hoops you jump through before they finally slap the degree on you is that you must -- yes, must -- sign the form granting UMI the right to keep a microfilm copy of your work, which they are allowed to sell. You retain copyright, but they get reproduction and some sales rights. If they sell more than 7 copies in a year, they must pay the author (that is, you) royalties of some fairly trivial amount.
I would expect that most institutions have a similar agreement with UMI and that most graduate students either don't care about the implications of the forced signature or (like me) figure that getting the PhD is a damn sight more important than having some guy pay a few bucks ten years down the road to see what a moldy dissertation about persistent neutron chains says.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Interesting. You can't access the site without accepting their cookies.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I looked at the website. It says:
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
From this I conclude:
1. Contentville are actually selling stuff that was already for sale off-line.
2. If your thesis is there, and you did not license it, presumably you gave a license to your University, which did. This is not unusual. Its generally in the agreement you sign in a hungover stupour during freshers' week.
If you read the fine print on their site, it appears that they are just reselling the data for a company called UMI. Seems to be owned by Bell & Howell. They also have a page that links to 2 other sources for dissertations. Seems to be something that has been available for awhile via the web and other means.
I'd be curious to see if kkkalen's dissertation is in all those places too. I would assume so.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
They are charging a fee for providing a service. They are collecting all the dissertations in one place, maintaining a library of them, and providing copies for people on request. The charges are to cover the expense of running the database, and distributing the materials.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I don't think that a $30 charge is too unreasonable. The data has to be stored, possibly many of the thesis are being stored and will never be purchased. Fullfillment is going to cost a significant amount, as credit card processing isn't free. And there is a large amount of infrastructure to make the system available at all. Plus I'm sure that the companies would like to make some money off the money that they are investing to make this distribution company run.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
They are not selling the works themselves. They are selling the service that makes the works available. It is a distribution company, not a content company at it's core.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Was that Time Warner, et al. worked to put all this information in a readily accessible location. They took the database that apparently was already out there, and slapped a web font-end on it. So that the papers can now be easily accessed.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
They are building a significant infrastrcuture to support the distribution of these papers. Ask Taco, putting a server online that can distribute information isn't cheap. Making it 100% reliable is more expensive yet. And there are costs associated with the fullfillment of orders, processing and whatnot. And the advertising that they apparently plan on doing to make the site better known. It all adds up to some serious bucks.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
This is the mighty slashdot. Where IP laws and corporations are denounced at every turn. I think the main reason that stories like this get posted on the main page, is becase the editors and readers here have a strong anti-corporatist bent. I can hardly wait to see how Katz will describe this company as commiting a heinous act, while he wholeheartedly supports Napster, et al.
And don't think for a moment that Napster doesn't have some plan to make money off what they do eventually. They are funded by VC's, and VC's are not known for their charity when it comes to fudning decisions.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
The guy you talk about probably doesn't have a family and probably never will because he's too worried about the taxes he'll have to pay for having a family. And he'll probably be breaking a law by having a child who produces a thesis sometime in the near future that has already been scheduled for inclusion into the ContentVille Database.
New Zealand has some interesting laws passing through in the next two years. Fancy settling in New Zealand. Houses in the South are still available around 40 thou. You like the cold right?
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
Well, if it's illegal to take the data from a database without permission from those who control it, then why don't we start placing all our work in our own databases first?
Granted, this doesn't help anyone already screwed by Contentville, but it can prevent any further damage. Then when they start placing our data in their databases and selling/distributing it, we slam *them* with a lawsuit. Since by the time this becomes an issue, there may be legal precedent (which would normally help them), they have two choices:
1) Remove the material from their database and pay damages as per the lawsuit.
2) Remove the material from their database and settle financially out of court.
Either way, they lose money, and your work is safe.
Raptor
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
Unfortunately, many PhDs DO get compensation -- they get stipends and teaching assistantships. Not too many people out there actually pay cash on the barrelhead for their PhD program.
Let's see... The site is owned by Time-Warner, which is represented in the DeCSS suit by the MPAA, who doesn't like all this here piracy that exists on the web.
Heck, these are OUR copyrights that are being trodden upon!
Let's get the EFF to sue them, and force them to settle for something reasonable... like sending $100 PER THESIS SOLD to a fund that will help 2600 in its legal battles...
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
It's legal because thesis papers and the like are usually published into the public domain without expectations of any royalties. This has been the tradition of the academic community for well over 300 years.
Well, tradition aside, since the copyright laws were rewritten in 1978, everything anyone writes is automatically copyrighted the moment it is put down on paper, or disc. They have no right to publish those theses unless they sign contracts with the people who wrote them. Plain and simple.
So ironic that many Napster users who are college students will find their own IP being hijacked and distributed, to someone else's benefit.
Information wants to be free, doesn't it?
Your thesis is not your property. It is (C) your university. If your university has sold it to them you are stuffed. And unleashing the lawyers of war will not help. At all...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I think most people are mad because these big media companies are claiming we are the pirates for sharing things for free yet they are selling our work without our consent and making laws to protect their angle. I personally don't care if you copy every thing I've ever coded, written, drawn, whatever but if you sell it I'm going to be pissed. That is why I like GPL over BSD. This is even worse, they aren't even asking the authors.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I thought ./'ers didn't believe in copyright?
You know, information wants to be free, free to be sold, repackaged, used, and anything people can come up with no matter what the original author's wants are.
Je ne parle pas francais.
No matter what the original author's wants are? Who do you think assigns the GPL to a work in the first place?
By wanting something to be free it means you want it to always be available. If you modify it you must make your modifications available under the same license.
In this case a company has assumed control over a work and is placing restrictions on it, not to mention refusing to turn it over without having you pay for it. The problem here is not that we want our copyright, but that we don't want some other entity claiming copyright and restricting the information.
Finkployd
slashdot will be printing a retraction of this story in the next copy of slashback. if not, they will do a full-blown 'expose' of contentville, ending with 'so i guess they're not really doing all this bad stuff we said they were, after all.'
how many times do you have to be bitten by the same hook? slashdot's modus operandi is, "print something REALLY controversial without checking facts, get tons of hits, print responsible sounding retraction, snicker all the way to bank."
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
In fact, I have no problem granting UMI, my university, or a journal a transferable right to publish my thesis or papers. For me, the problem occurs when those institutions want to prohibit me from distributing or reusing my own work.
Well, you said it, but you didn't take the ball and run with it, so allow me...
/. of all places and complain about a company attempting to make a profit from thier work? Slashdot is one of the most vocal Pro-Napster sites i've come across on the internet... And the case here is IDENTICAL to what's going on on Napster, except on Napster, it's worse because most of the music available through them is published with the intent of making at least a little money (if not, why sign with a label in the first place?).
/. crowd will invariably side against this company, yet will continue to cry foul when Napster does the same exact thing to music artists...
How could anyone in their right mind write in to
It would seem that if anything, stealing, err... I mean, sharing(!), graduate theses' would be at least a little more acceptable, being that generally there isn't any money to be made from the act of writing a thesis.
I'll read on and shake my head in bewilderment as the
Regardless of how they actually work or how you phrase it, to the end user, it appears that they connect to Napster, type in a song, and download that track. They've cloaked everything else, to the point that for all intents and purposes, they're just as liable for violating copyrights as this company might be...
Unless grad students are required to sign away their rights either period or to a third party as part of publishing their thesis... I dunno about that, though, since it's foreign territory for me...
I saw a Moneyline interview with the head of Contentville a few weeks back. The guy turned my stomach in general, but two particular phrases/concepts in particular stuck out:
..." somewhere else.
1) He claimed that they are not actually selling copyrighted materials. What thay are selling is the convenience of being able to easily obtain materials that are available (often for free) elsewhere. You, the cusomer, pays for the convenience of the fact that you don't have to look as hard as you otherwise would.
This point is total BS, since a search engine like Google is quick and accurate, and keeps the $5 (approx) dollars in my pocket. BTW: In the case of non-freely available materials, they're going to buy them on your behalf, and pass the cost on to you, along with the 'nominal fee'. Afterwards, I'm sure they'll keep a copy of the materials - so they don't have to re-buy them next time - but will charge the next customer the same 'acquisition + nominal fee' amount.
2) The attitude that customers can buy the articles/papers/whatever from Contentville for a nominal fee, or they can go and "... buy it for free
"Buy it for free" elsewhere? That right there defined the character of the man for me. He's about money. He's not trying to do the right thing, or change the world, or even make research simpler for others. He's in it to get rich, and for some reason I found such a blatanly greedy attitude repugnant.
Crash and burn, ContentVille! Die!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Depending on your school's policies, they may have a right to anything created using their facilities. Not that this is particularly ethical, but it is possible. Hope you wrote it on your home machine :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
No unethical person would ever disregard a robots.txt file, wouldn't they?
</sarcasm>
I wonder what the official justification for this is. Perhaps there is someone at the university to be held accountable for this decision? (Yes, I am a naive person.)
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That's ok. The author has the right to re-release the work under a different license. Just be sure to do the GPL version (I assume that FDL works the same way) first.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Is there anything preventing releasing the thesis under a Free Document License (GPL for documents [I haven't read it!]) before you sign the rights over to the University? If I guess their purpose correctly (to be able to reprint it without legal problems) this shouldn't cause any problems.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I can understand the proposition as you present it. Somehow this doesn't convince me that I would see the situation the same way if I were in possession of the same facts. More to the point, with the proposed legislation it is time to have already started taking steps to ward off the invaders. UMI may currently be benevolent, and preforming a public service, but it is a business, and when the economic rules change (e.g., a change in the rules about copyrights on databases), then its activities can be expected to change. And since we don't know what the laws will be, except that we don't have much to say about them, we need to take proactive steps to protect ourselves.
.. essential is to retain the right of the author to also release the work under another license) and then to release it under whatever license they are coerced into using. That way the right to redistribute will be maintained. It would also be worthwhile if someone (Project Gutenberg?) were to create a repository in which these redistributable works could reside.
One such step, which I propose, is for every author to first release their work under the FDL (or such modification as may seem suitable to them
I understand and sympathise with UMI's current position and operation. I worry about the result of changes in legislation. Centralized controls need to be decentralized! Potential chokepoints need to be designed around. Thus we design/build a society that remains free.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hear hear! This is exactly the right attitude. There's nothing wrong with selling copies of a thesis... but there's nothing wrong with giving it away either!
-- Michael Chermside
I specified when I submitted my dissertation to diss abstracts that they were not authorized to distribute it and- amazingly, mine isn't on the list of available dissertations. I believe that you sign the document that says that you retain copyright but you allow them to sell them and send you a wee percentage (i think it adds up to about $3 or something). I didn't want people being ripped off by them, so mine is available for free, but with copyright...
There are two issues here.
1. In general, anything you say, do, write, think or produce is protected under the Berne convention.
2. However, #1. doesn't apply to those who have given up those rights either by posting on a forum with a TOS that includes implicitly giving up rights to postings or pysically signing some sort of document giving up those rights.
The Berne convention allows you to collect reasonable damages and (I believe, but don't quote me) reasonable attorney's fees. Copyrighting your work entitles you to $5000 per violation (and I believe other remedies, but I don't recall right now).
From what I have read in the above posts, many students have actually signed their Berne rights away. It all depends on the wording of that document they signed...
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
According to this link: Here They will track you down and give you your money, but it sounds like they will do this after they sell things.
This link..
CONTENTVILLE.COM COPYRIGHT POLICY Contentville.com will block access to and/or remove any material that it believes in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and submitted to our site. This policy shall cover all aspects of Contentville.com, including, but not limited to user comments or other content submitted to our site. What to do if you think a copyright is being infringed: -- Identify where or whom the material is from. --Tell us how the rightful owner may be contacted. -- Give us a statement of good faith belief that the material is infringing, and that the information provided is accurate and the complaint is authorized by the copyright holder. -- Send the notice of Copyright infringement to the following Designated Copyright Infringement Agent for Contentville.com: Catherine Seda Copyright Agent of Contentville.com Contentville.com 1230 Avenue of the Americas 16th Floor New York, NY 10020 212-332-6400 or via email to: copyright@Contentville.com Once we receive this information, we will: -- Block the infringing material or site -- Notify the infringing user -- In the case of a first time offender, the infringing material will be removed. -- In the case of repeat offenders, we will endeavor to remove them permanently from the site.
Please see this link:
http://www.contentville.com/c ontent/dissertations.asp
*from the page*
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
--Brandon
My Thesis is in there, and I do believe the
University (of Michigan, in my case) has the
right to sell it. My brothers Thesis (from
Harvard) is not there.
Here is the twist! When I published my thesis
I ask Sidney Harris' permission to reproduce
a cartoon ("Proof? You want proof? I'll give you
proof...", my thesis is in Math) for a few
(less than ten) copies of my thesis...
If they reproduce the Cartoon who would be
violating Sidney Harris' copyright me or them?
I am unwilling to pay 60$ to find out...
By the way I give my thesis for free...
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Well, from reading the disclaimer at the top of their "Dissertations" page, they say that authors "retain all rights to their works." In addition, authors will still get royalties from any sales of their dissertations.
They also state that they have an agreement of sorts with someone called UMI Dissertations Publishing, whoever that is.
It sounds like something is a little fishy, but at least they're stating out front that no rights are being usurped, IMHO.
I too have 95,000 theses, but they won't quite fit in the margin of this post.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> If they just distributed all these works via Napster or Gutella, et.al., no one would care... right?
Actually, that would be the ideal way of disseminating research, provided that you had an easy + effective way of searching for the subject matter you need.
Combine that with a system that builds and maintains a "reverse bibliography" (i.e., who quotes this paper), and you would have a killer app for the research community.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> How applicable would the GPL be to essays and thesis papers?
FSF introduced a "content" license last year; it would probably be applicable.
> Would anyone be willing to GPL their research the same way they GPL their source?
Academic research has for the most part been "free" for centuries. You write your theses with the expectation - nay, hope - that thousands of other people will get a free copy out of their library, read it, and quote it extensively in their own work. And that their work will build on it.
What is not expected is that they will appropriate the whole thing, or major chunks of it, and stick their name on it.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm a little pissed about this. My mother's dissertation is in there, and I'm in graduate school right now.
So let me get this straight:
Large companies own the property on say a DVD to the point that I can't even use it, except under special conditions, even after I have purchased it. The slaving graduate student who spent years of their life with little to no recompense doesn't own a damn thing, and gets jack shit, but a company can sell it if they want?
How in the world has copyright law gotten so twisted from its regular intention. I'm ashamed about what our country is coming to.
But hey, I can still be pacified...., er,.... make myself feel better by watching some TV. Hey! Maybe Brittany Spears will be on? Maybe I'll just go buy some stuff too? That always makes me feel better. My credit cards are maxed..., but what the hell. I deserve it!
I think I'm gonna go throw up.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
I second this. Contentville or whatever has legally acquired distribution rights for the theses, so there's no problem there. Most universities don't steal the copyright away when you turn in a thesis; they just require a royalty-free right to distribute the thesis (which is perfectly reasonable). So I would urge everyone to first contact the author of a thesis and ask for a copy (which the author can legally supply) before resorting to other methods of getting a copy of a thesis.
I don't think what they are doing is legal. If it is, it shouldn't be.
Yes, anyone who wants to can get my thesis from a library through an interlibrary loan.
But they should not be allowed to turn around and sell it without even notifying me or paying me a dime.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Hmmm. I overreacted in my previous post where I said I would demand they give my thesis away for free.
I have a better idea now. On the details page where they list the options for purchasing from them ($30 for PDF, up to $66 for bound copy) I want them to put a link that says something like:
"The author of this thesis has made it available for free download from (my site)".
I think that is the best solution, and true to the spirit of the scientific method and the GPL.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I have mixed feelings to find that my masters thesis on Cache Scheduling is available there.
It's nice in some ways - I can easily link to it from an on-line resume, for example, and it might help some researcher find my work.
But overall, I don't approve of Contentville's use of my copyrighted material: in particular, selling it for a profit.
It's not that I don't want people reading it. After all, I wrote it with the expectation that other researchers would use it and hopefully benefit from it. That's the whole point of the scientific method.
My thesis is copyright by me. I have allowed the University of Victoria library unlimited rights to make FREE copies of it for the purposes of interlibrary loans and whatnot - that's part of the deal with publishing it at UVic. But I'm sure that no-one is supposed to profit from copying it except (optionally) me.
I'm going to check the details of the copyright on my thesis tonight. Then I'll be writing a letter to Contentville demanding that they give my thesis away for free (or at most the cost of copying and postage).
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I think the Open Content license would be more appropriate for everything outside CS thesi. But a better question is why you would want to. The academic community has no desire for collaboration on a single paper, instead they cite other works within existing copywrite law. Rather than making your thesis Open Content, it would be a much more beneficial act to ensure that it's available on-line (for free) so that everyone could read it to enhance their own work.
I have a PhD from UC Berkeley. To get my PhD I had to write a thesis. When I turned in my thesis, I was required to publish it by signing an agreement with UMI allowing them to sell copies. Every other grad school I'm familiar with is similar.
I keep the copyright, and if UMI ever sells more than a few copies, they pay me royalties. (Although I'd be shocked if they ever sell another copy after the one my mom bought) Contentville is forwarding orders on to UMI, so I'd get paid if someone bought my thesis through Contentville.
The reason for requiring theses to be published is to ensure that the research they contain is always accessible. Sure, I'll send you a copy of my thesis if you ask me, and so will most other academics, but it's nice to have a central repository where theses are always available. Sometimes it's hard to find or get in touch with an author (try getting Ted Kaczynski's thesis directly from Ted!).
Basically this story seems like someone writing a book and then complaining when they discover Barnes & Noble selling it.
If they just distributed all these works via Napster or Gutella, et.al., no one would care... right?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Hell most people on here will talk you til their blue in the face telling you there shouldn't be any IP rights anyway...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
This "you are a hypocrite and he is a hypocrite" logic is flawed at the root. What do we owe to our employers? To our contractees? To our Universities? To our government, or parents, or even to humanity?
What I see is two groups:
1.Corporations try to maximize profits by selling everything they can get their hands on, and trying to own (by forcing artists to contract to them) all works.
2.Slashdot people trying to maximize their freedoms by trying to make everything free, cheap, and easy to obtain.
Obviously, this is a cyber-punk world already. Where is the Government? Shouldn't it be trying to strike a balance between these obviously flawed sides? 1. Makes you broke, as you will pay to monopolies all your money and then some just to get what you need. 2. Is unstable, and makes darn certain artists and engineers alike won't be paid. If you got rid of society's engineers and artists, would you be left with a free internet, but a job at a factory or a farm? Not likely, a company will just step in over the powerless free-thinkers and take a big, monetary bite out of the whole thing and institute a #1 all over again.
I own copyright on this statement.
-Ben
What you're saying sounds remarkably like "it's okay to steal as long as you make it a non-profit effort". You can steal from artists by using Napster, because you're not making money. But others can't, because they're making money.
That's wrong.
"You're solving the wrong problem!"
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
I don't see the logic there. Even RMS has no
objection to selling software for money. The question is whether they can be REdistributed free. If so, then at least they're consistent.
You have to pay the $60 to find out.....
Gavin Fischer
I can''t speak for your school, but at mine we do not own the work. The school does (PhD) thesis. I am in the process of writing as we speak (should not be reading this) and have to sighn the copyright assighnment sheet to turn the thesis into the library. It is similar to when we publish papers in refereed journals, we also lose that copyright.
I am in biology (molecular immunology), so your field/school may be differant (sounds like it is) but I would not say the blanket statement that all of these thesis's (?thesi?) are taken without permission.
Gavin Fischer
Here is an example of the problem as I see it.
I write a thesis that concludes Linux is superior to windows. Now someone comes by, changes some to the statistics and then changes the conclusions to say Linux Sucks. Sure, they now add their name to the paper, but my name is still on it. By the GPL they don't even have to explicitly denote what they changed, just that they changed it. Now when someone reads my paper, they could very easily get the idea that I'm pro-Windows and anti-Linux when they are reading a paper I've authored but have never read.
Until you show me a provision of the GPL that mandates all changes be highlighted, commented, denoted, separated, supplied in a patch, etc..., it will be impossible for the reader to know where person A's ideas stop and person B's ideas start.
Quack
Do you really want this?
If you GPLed your thesis, anyone could then rewrite the whole thing, change your conclusions to something you don't agree with, change the rev number, keep your name on it, and republish it without your permission. That would truely suck.
All of a sudden anyone could attribute any quote to your work by just reving the docutment.
Quack
When I wrote my dissertation (not a graduate level one, but still), the nominal reason was to add to the sum total of knowledge. (The real reason, of course, was to get that all-important piece of parchment-like substance, but the ideal is still there.)
If this company obtained access to the text of that paper, and provided it for free, I would not mind. They're helping to spread knowledge.
If they were charging for access to their database of acquired papers, I would not mind. Essentially, they are charging you for use of their service, something that is undeniably theirs through virtue of their ownership of the servers, salaries of maintenance people, etc. In one sense, that's what Napster does.
However, if they acquired and sold as a commodity my dissertation, without prior authorization from me or my university (who, I assume, would notify me), I would find myself highly vexed. That is a violation not only of the letter of copyright law, but the spirit.
Does anyone else think this is an important division of follicles? BTW, as I recall, my university gets proprietorship of my thesis work as part of the degree process. What are the chances that said company paid medium-sized bank to various universities to get the theses? If this occured, I'd still be offended but they'd be on somewhat more stable legal ground, I think.
-TBHiX-
I'm intelligent and apathetic. I know this, and I don't care.
I am pursuing a BSc title right now, not a PhD. I know, the article talked about doctorate thesis, but it still is a thesis. I am studying in an American university, and yes, the copyright remains mine - double checked. In Mexico, this is also usually the case: Your work will always remain yours, even though it is published as work for a university.
Greetings,
I am working on my thesis, and it will be (well, what I have done already IS) under the FSF FDL - Free Documentation License. It is much better suited to writings than the GPL. GPL was written to protect code, FDL was written to protect writings.
FDL takes some approaches that it would be very hard to take on programs. It contemplates invariant sections, which should always appear. It also provides for invariant texts which should appear at the cover, back or first/last pages of the book.
Napster = GOOD
My.MP3.com = GOOD
Contentville = BAD
Have you ever heard of something called 'consistency'? The sad thing is I do get it. If its a big corporation, its bad, but if its the 'empower user' its good. Even if the 'empowered user' is backed by millions and millions in venture capital. I seriously doubt this DB protection law would make it illegal for the guy to use his own thesis; he does have a copyright on it. I don't think that any sane person would believe that he couldn't. So why did you write it? why did you say it? Flame bait? I'd say so. A baseless appeal to all the brain-dead slashbots out there
Copyright is dead, deal with it.
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
-1 I dissagree
-1 I didn't get the joke
-1 Stupid
-1 Individual thought
----------------------
+1 I agree +1 Bitting commentary on the state of slasdot +1 I'm modding myself up with another account +1 Stupid, but then so am I.
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Check out this short science fiction story by RMS called 'The Right to Read'.
An interesting take on where things are headed, it's over three years old and remarkably prescient...
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
They are not claiming that they wrote it (it says right on the cover who wrote it!!). They are claiming that they will send you a copy of someone else's work, for a price (paper and printing costs + money for UMI + a little extra for themselves). That someone else is free to send you a copy of their work, if you ask them.
I want to know where your conclusion came from... it seems non sequitur to me.
Disclaimer: I don't believe that music should be free (what would street performers do?.... "Got any spare change?"... "No.. music should be free"..). It should be a heck of a lot cheaper (labels need to make money, but not as much as they do).
Oh... and getting MP3s off of Napster isn't stealing. Theft implies that the original owner no longer has the "item" in question. In copying music, the owner clearly does retain possesion.
Basically, we need to re-think our ideas of copyright and IP. Neither side is right at the moment (and I have no ideas on the subject right now... I'll get back to you later. :-)
I don't know what the fuss is all about. I'm actually disappointed that I couldn't find mine in their database. I kinda feel left out. :-( I certainly would not have been annoyed or felt robbed if they were to sell copies. This was work done through a UNIVERSITY! That's one of our last "pure" academic entities. If the work I did there shouldn't be made public, then what should!? Free sharing of ideas, concepts, and the research involved in getting there are all fundamental elements of academia. What's the problem? The fact that these people are making a profit off this effort? Bah. They're providing a service no one else is, so I say more power to them.
Maybe Slashdot should lobby congress, it seems that the editors of this site give their opinions often enough. I'd be happy to volunteer as slashdot/Andover's representative in Washington....
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
I'm tempted to order my own thesis and see
if I get a check..
-- The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk
> The irony is that I now know how the musicians feel about Napster.
Not really, though - after all, if the site had been offering your thesis for free download, I bet you'd have been quite pleased. It's the thought that someone else is making money off it is the annoying thing.
No, but it would require that Contentville also provide the thesis (or a link to the thesis) for free).
But isn't this the way the GPL works? RedHat can sell your GPL'd software, at a profit, without ever notifying you, or paying you.
I suppose the difference is that RedHat, per terms of the GPL, also provides a free copy of the same item they sell, where as Contentville doesn't.
Well, at least you've gotten temporary revenge by getting us to slashdot them. I did a search and there sure are a lot of theses on beer; 432 by their count.
I'm Peggy.
My Ph.D. thesis is there. I'm going write them a note telling them they cannot sell it.
They may not be selling it. UMI makes available abstracts for papers they can't (and don't) sell.
UMI is at http://www.umi.com. They have answers on their site to a lot of questions that are coming up here. It might be worth peoples' time to do a little research before flying off the handle...
Admittedly, musician's rights are important, but let's face facts. A very large number of /.'ers were ardently in support of Napster (I imagine many still are) before they came up with the idea that this is actually a good way to re-evaluate musician's rights within the music industry.
The /. hypocracy is too much for me to take.
"Boo propetary evil icky AOL" -> "AOL is available for Linux" -> "AOL is good software.".
"Napster freely distributes music." -> "RIAA says music is theirs" -> "RIAA is evil. Napster is good"
"Someone is distributing information which actually belongs to us." -> "Protect our rights! No, this isn't remotely similar to Napster!! ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!!!"
There's a reason I haven't posted in quite some time; I haven't been reading that often. I not going to at all anymore.
-rt
======
Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
and CRUISE for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!!
once they steal it, it's theirs... so the way to protect your GPLed thesis is to let them have it. That way, not even you can change it.
______
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
http://leftorium.net
Now I'm really mad--I mean, I stood to make a fortune off the rights to my dissertation The Formation of Current Sheets in Slowly Evolving, Low-Beta, Nearly Ideal, Magnetohydrodynamic Plasmas, and now I see they beat me to it. Nuts!
All levity aside, this causes me to wonder what exactly I got when I paid to register the copyright on the work. Time to get in contact with my college roomate, the intellectual property attorney.....
your university ultimately owns the intellectual property for you dissertation (why are they giving PhDs to idiots who can't read the fine print).
This isn't so in all cases. I own the copyright on my document, e.g.--I remember hoofing across town in the rain to get a money order to register the darned thing.
Leave it to idiots at slashdot to think this is some big deal.
Since the original agreements with UMI are being upheld, I agree that their publishing excerpts from dissertation abstracts is hardly of earth-shattering importance. My own reaction was more of surprise than anything at seeing my document listed there. (I'd be surprised if mine has sold even a single copy--my thesis advisor didn't even bother reading it).
As if deep-pocket post-grads are coming out of the woodwork? Maybe I'm at the wrong school...
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Aha, I see -- we're in different post-grad worlds. In my world, "post-grad" refers to one who is doing post-graduate work/study, usually for peanuts and solely for the sake of meeting some traditional requirement that "real" scientists do a post-doc. Your post-grad world, however, sure looks like a nice place to visit. (I secretly kept my "pre-grad" CS skills in a lockbox, so that I can immigrate someday...)
Bottom line, Content-ville is seeking to make a profit without fairly compensating the author's they're brokering. And that's wrong.
Yep. Particularly when the authors seem to be so removed from the process. I think most authors and researchers would be happy to have their work widely disseminated, so long as they know where it is and how it's being used.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Ever since I posted my resume on my web site a few years ago, I have received several e-mails from companies to the effect of "Thank you for submitting your resume to our web site!" even when I never visited their web site. I'm sure that many more have spidered the web, found my resume and thousands more like it, and charged businesses for the use of their list. All the while, I don't see a cent of this income. (I have received some interesting job offers, though.)
I can't completely blame them, though. I didn't put a robots.txt on my site, so all of this content is up for grabs. Sad, in a way.
For more information, click here.
The ever-popular Fucked Company awarded viewers 189 points for picking this company -- turns out that they have been accused previously of selling content they don't own. What a way to make a business: take stolen content and slap a horrible interface on it. Then bring on the venture capital.
For more information, click here.
yeah, but 1-click shopping doesn't count =)
Well, now that our content is being pirated, it's perhaps time to reevaluate the rights of the creator as pertaining to his/her work. If we disagree with a way our works our being distributed, then why don't musicians get to have a say in how their music is (re)distributed?
Just some food for thought.
---------
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
OK, here's the deal:
:-)
1. dissertations are being offered to interested folks. This is GOOD.
2. those interested folks have to pay for them, money which flows into the pockets of some company which probably adds ZERO value (apart from offering a database service, but we'll get to this). This is BAD. Science can only progress when there are giants (and midgets and everything in between) on whose shoulders we can stand. There's no need for a toll booth here, in fact it will only hinder the advance of science.
3; the people behind companies like this one are trying the same old buy-me-a-law trick which gave us laws like the DMCA and aberrations like UCITA. This is BAD. Very BAD. Money talks...
Well, I think the copyright holders for the dissertations (the authors) mostly agree with the fact that this information really wants to be free. So why not make it available for free? If everyone were to add their dissertation to an on-line database (like dmoz.org), and offer the service of mailing it (for some low fee to cover expenses) to interested parties, the information really IS free. And sleezes like contentville will find a dry well where the once suspected an oasis. This is GOOD (tm)
If dmoz.org is not sufficient, maybe someone with a server to spare and a few gig's worth of diskspace can put them online, run htDig:: over them, and offer full text search capability?
Maybe Andover is interested? It'll give a lot of page impressions...
--frank[at]unternet.org
yup. mine is not on there. mine was dumped to a CDROM since it wouldnt fit on website (all of 250+ pages or 600 megs compressed with software/notes/images/presentations etc) and printed. i dont see anyone trying to put that much data online in any case...85K x 600Megs is a LOT of data
moral of the story : write a really BIG thesis. it should stop pilfering for now anyway...my unis library has a big stack of thesises which completely fill a really big room...its worth seeing.
lets just say it was a tier 1 ranked institution (by usnews as of 1999). and its somewhere near the top of the tier 1's...no lower than third place. :)
yup...my thesis had a lot of raw data (as was necessary in this case - it was based on computing the data using various algorithms and comparing performance/compute cost/suitability to the problem domain etc etc). in addition there was a major software component (75K+ lines in C - typed with pico i might add) and a fairly large explanation of the software including proofs of the maths used, more graphs, pictures, matlab analysis (ugh! - i hate matlab), even more graphs..etc..etc...you get the idea.
It was fairly well organised tho :
/ - 2 megs of autorun stuff plus a pretty HTML start page/images/proposal/timeline
/thesis - the basic 250+ page written document - around 100 megs (M$ word...yes...i know..)
/software - around 20 megs (source + various binaries, some precompiled stuff for those unable/unwilling to recompile)
/utils - 40 megs of various utilities and junk (conversion of data, data handling stuff etc etc)
/help - around 30 megs of help documents (pretty pictures, interactive shit, animations, screenshots etc etc)
/base - 250 megs or so of data in an unprocessed base which could be loaded into the software
/dump - 180 megs or so of processed data as proofs
/misc - 70 megs of various junk (matlab files, graphs, simple test stuff to validate the software, assorted libraries for building the software, support frameworks etc etc.
ok..ok...i know about latex. i like word (inspite of the fact it crashes all the time, four times a day and takes 10 minutes to load ONE chapter ...the thesis is broken up into chapters each with their own DOC file since word crashed on me and refused to load more than one chapter when it was in a big file) because its simple. Latex has a steep learning curve (yes i know about lyx but it isnt that good...yet) and the thought of learning ONE more thing (after all the X/MOTIF/OpenGL stuff i had to go thru for implementing image processing on a unix box in C with multithreaded parallel processing on multiple RISC machines...) was a bit too much. besides, almost everyone has word....and linux wasnt all that mature when i wrote my thesis...so there was no staroffice. and anyway, all i had was a 200MHz pentium pro with NT Server/Office on it..which was also being pounded on by four other grad students.
Here's my big question on this:
So... the question is, if you didn't sign some kind of agreement at some point (our original poster apparently didn't, so he didn't know about this before), what kind of royalties are you getting?
To use the Inevitable Comparison: Napster doesn't say a thing about royalties. This site just says, "we'll pay royalties" but doesn't say to WHO...
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
Do you really think that's the point?
They have a notice up saying that they're collecting royalty information.
I believe that about as much as I believe the "You must not access this MP3 3133+ FTP unless you're a 104-year-old lesbian dog named 'Bruce'" disclaimers.
As was stated above -- it's illegal to do a little copyright infringement, but if you're a Big Corporation, it seems to all be a-OK.
Does anyone *really* think they'll get royalties from this? Bah, they'll make their money, and the Jon Johansens (sp?) of the world will keep getting in trouble with the authorities...
I don't know about you. but this seems like a much greater-scale violation of the rights of more people than a potential copy-protection-bypass utility.
They're stealing people's work and selling it without their permission. And they're going to get away with it. I have no problem with the idea that theses should be made available, or that they can be sold, but these pirates (unlike the MP3 collectors who don't make a single dime off it ) are making a quick buck off of everyone else's work.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Well then, I suppose if I find some way to collect all of my works, that would be a database.
.edu's). So then if this database protection law goes into effect, wouldn't our good friends at Contentville have broken their own law?
If a University decides to have its student's works collected before going out, that would be a database as well.
I'm pretty sure that this already goes on to some extent (at least with
Of course, it's after the fact.
And, the ubiquitous IANAL =)
Well, I went to the site, and looked at their wares. Basically, all they're providing for free are the abstracts, which are taken from the UMI database. Most university libraries have this type of database available for student research. If the abstract indicates the paper may be useful for your own research, you either try to get it through interlibrary loan, or you buy a copy.
I don't see how this is any different from before, except that it's on a web page.
I don't recall ever signing anything. In fact, my thesis (which IS available on Contentville) is clearly marked as copyright Ian C. Williamson on page 3!
Now, maybe the university shouldn't have published it with my copyright in it, but it's there, so can they just give it away? Regardless of what I may have signed. Maybe universities whould be more clear on copyright.
Further, I'm a Canadian citizen and did my graduate work at a Canadian University, so I'm not entirely sure how that works into the mix.
I DO feel a little violated by this.
IanW
No cookie.
To access this site your browser must be accepting cookies.
This even after I specifically told Lynx to accept their cookie. Looks like someone needs to learn how to properly construct a web site.
-- $SIGNATURE
Their site would really rock if they had theses and thoses together in huge database. Kord
Does anyone have an example of a copyright statement that says to the effect that everything in a project/thesis/essay can't be reproduced or sent outside the university/college without first contacting the author for permission? Or would it be enough just to say roughly what I said in my previous sentence?
I don't want someone else to own the content of what I will be doing at university. I don't mind if it's given away free, but if people charge for it then that's not on as far as I'm concerned.
Napster is a merely a medium for information exchange, much of which is pay-for copyrighted music. However, with Napster, a user allows the transfer, for free, to someone else of music that they have on their machine. In the above case, a website, funded by large corporations, is taking theses that are meant to be freely available, and that are not being charged for, and then selling them. Not only that, but that same website is claiming they own these theses, or that they're in the public domain.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Why do people on slashdot complain about *their* copyrights being violated, yet vehemently defend their right to violate the copyrights of musicians?
To be fair, Slashdot is not a Borg-like collective (even though it does look that way a lot of the time). There are some people out there who believe in copyright and Don't Do Warez, some who think copyright is a good idea but that there are some monopoly abuses, some who despise the very concept and so on.
There will also be some number whose views change according to whose copyright is being discussed and, yes, those are hypocrites. But not _everyone_ who reads Slashdot is like that.
Cheers,
Mat.
Have you completed a book in the last eight or so years? If so, it is probably for sale at http://www.amazon.com, a for-profit company which I understand is publically traded. Mine is there and I never gave them permission to sell it. As far as I know, I am the sole owner of the copyright on my book. Even my ex-wife had to ask permission (she did) before she could make it available on a web site (for free, by the way).
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
Napster does not store copyrighted information. This site does. Not the same situation.
But the catch is that they only pay royalties to the author if more than 7 are sold per year. Not much chance of that happening.
Ye Cats, I'm surprised anyone on this group read 'The Little Prince'
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Hmmmm...
I can't tell without actually purchasing one, but by looking up a friend's who I know has copyrighted his, since it has been turned into a book, it seems that ContentVille will let you go through the whole ordering process as if they have it in stock and ready to ship. I'm not going to give them my credit card since they seem to have kind of weak privacy practices (they want your mother's maiden name just to register with the site, yeah right!)
Work for Change & GET PAID!
From http://www.contentville.com/c ontent/dissertations.asp
Where do Contentville's dissertations come from?
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
UMI is a Bell & Howell" company (I think that's the company that makes educational film strips, and slide projectors). All I can find on copyright from UMI, is how they are will to act as your agent in applying for a copyright. (see this) But on a page linked from there, they say:
UMI publishes dissertations and theses only from accredited institutions and only with a signed publishing agreement from each author. We offer free informational packets with comprehensive details about the publishing process and other UMI services, along with the forms to fill out.
So my guess is that only the abstracts have been 'stolen', and that if you haven't signed an agreement your dissertation isn't really available.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Sorry, did I short-circuit your brain on that one?
It's interesting that Steven Brill and his settlement with writers are mentioned, since, as you can see here, he is, in fact, the CEO of Contentville
Maybe we should all put a URL in the abstract so that anyone browsing the thesis can directly bypass them.
That will show them.
rbb
But then again, "Dog bites man" isn't news, but "Man bites dog" is.
Wah!
first things first -- put your money where your mouth is, and post your papers on your sites, tonight. devalue this thing.
but wait, there's more:
look, www.contentvillefree.com is available. So here's what we do, and i'll pay the $35 if i can get some help building it.
I buy it. You mail me your thesis, to which you've attached the gpl that refers to content, just to be safe. I post the thesis. Then, we put a link to contentvilleFree on all of our pages, we word-of-mouth, hey, maybe some or the more daring out there even break contentville and re-direct it to our site.
Then, contentville is worthless. Why would anyone pay them when they can get the same info for free? We'll allow for micropayments or paypal or something. Suckers.
Then, and this is the best part, I get sued. And i go on tv, and i tell everyone how much Time-Warner wants creators of IP to get paid, unless the creator isn't paying *them* 50% of album sales. Then, see, they don't mind.
I'll close down the site, of course, cause i've got a job and better things to do, but it gets this on tv.
I only need a couple of papers to get myself sued. I can get them up within the week. Let me know if you have any interest in either helping or contributing a paper. They're so effing good at manipulating images, i think that it's time that we brought it to them, poor, exploited academic style -- "it's my life's work -- i can't pay my rent -- and time-warner's charging $29.95 for it! so sad, so sad!" tv will love it.
seriously. shit. i've got some vacation time coming. i'll get sued.
god is just pretend.
I have no problem with other folks using my papers for research. This is why I put my good stuff in the university library, so that other folks can use it for free (Well, I guess that's 'Free' as dictated by the UC Regents). I also put them up on my webpage, and said "Use em, they're free!"
If a private institution wants to profit off (An unbound copy of my works is $29.95 -- Which seems like alot).
Do I need to attach a friggen license to my papers now?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I looked for my thesis as well as those from people in my Masters program (UCL Linguistics - class of 1998) and couldn't find any of the titles or authors. Seems to be only a US thing; almost makes me glad I went to the UK for my degree :)
just my blog and pix
From reading Contentville's statements, and the (various) agreements people writing theses have to sign that...
1) You still hold copyright.
2) You give UMI the right to resell/redistribute your thesis.
3) Contentville is NOT UMI, but reselling stuff from their database.
4) You did not give UMI the rights to authorize others to distribute your thesis.
5) Contentville is in the wrong.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Do all of you get your news only from Slashdot? This story has been all over the net for a week now!
0 0.html
, 00.html
The date on this sucker at Wired is Aug 8.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,38052,
And that's the story *after* the controversy was ended by an agreement.
The big breaking story was on JULY TWENTY FREAKING SEVENTH!
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,37804
Change the URL to Molassdot. Bah! Phooey!
The gross oversimplification of Napster aside, how do you know that this person is not anti-Napster? Do you think you are the only Slashdot reader who in anti-Napster?
I just got off the phone with the people at Contentville and this is not quite what it has been portrayed on Slashdot. It turns out that Contentville is a retailer selling copies of these works published by Bell and Howell. Do you remember Bell and Howell? They are the people you paid $150 bucks to print up 5 copies of your thesis or dissertation. Two typically go to the author, two to the university library, and one to the Library of Congress.
In their standard agreement they make everyone sign, they set themselves up as technically being a publisher and they reserve the right to distribute your work in printed and electronic form. They say that if your thesis generates more then $10 in sales in a calendar year, they will pay you a 10% royalty. The ownership of the copyright remains entirely with the author. This is the same agreement they have used for a long time when theses are ordered by other libraries and sometimes by individuals. The only part that's new is the aggressive marketing.
They are running this as an opt out program. If you do not want them selling your thesis online you can call 800-521-0600 x2873 and they will remove your work from the database.
In all, this seems to me like it is not theft. They are taking advantage of the small print in an existing contract to sell books. This isn't too different from conventional publishing except they didn't inform the authors that they were cranking up the marketing machine. They were not able to give me any cases where they had actually generated sales through Contentville or where they had paid any authors, but they have only been up about a month. The woman I spoke to also said that they will only be issuing royaly statements to authors who generate more than $10 in sales.
Because of the minimum sales requirement and the lack of accounting statements for all writers, this gives them the opportunity to underreport sales and steal from people if they want. Time will tell how they will handle this part
no, it's not incidental. that's the whole goddamned point. if someone wants a copy of my thesis, they can have it for the cost of binding a copy. i didn't write it so that some bitch company like Contentville could turn around and make a buck off of my work.
you can't even compare it to napster. napster isn't taking copyrighted CD's, ripping them to MP3, and then offering them to you for a price. jesus, apples and fucking oranges.
it's all about money. it's always been about money. and it always will be about money.
TWISI, "under the GPL" means there's nothing stopping M$ from rewriting a linux kernel as long as credit is given where credit is due. The problem is in author's intentions.
;j
The name Linux and Linus have been forever inextricably interlinked. It can be generally assumed that any changes to Linux will move Linux closer to the author's vision. When we don't have the same degree of control over the process of dissemination that Linus did, it's possible that changes to our work will take a different direction than one we'd intended. But by the GPL credit will still be given to the original author.
The original poster's concern seems to be the consequences of letting other people play with your toys. You may not always like what happens to them
See: http://www.contentville.com/c ontent/dissertations.asp
You probably did give UMI rights to redistribute (you have to, right?)
Greg
Hypocrisy. It's not (suppposed to be) a form of government.
I'm Abram Bender. You're not.
That this may have been done just so the companies involved in the big lawsuits right now (which certainly have relations to those running contentville) can point to it when angry users shut it down and then say "why don't we have those rights?" Food for paranoid thought, heh.
Diehard
Or could it be that there are well over 70,000 members of the Slashdot community (don't know the exact number but I'm number 77,400) and that not all of them will read all the articles. The ones reading/posting to an article on napster are probably not the same ones to read/post to an article about Thesis mis-appropriation.
This variety of reader gives slashdot It's interesting atmosphere. If everyone thought the same or was interested in only the same things, it would not be such a dynamic place.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
Why do hippies always misinterpret the term 'copyright' and assume it's opposite would be 'copyleft'?
It seems to me that the proper opposite would be 'copywrong.'
Of course, that doesn't sound all Stalinist and cool and stuff, like the Red Star on the Mozilla logo.
Ok. This is probably a troll, but what the hell, I'll bite. CopyRIGHT is speaking neither of direction (right & left) or of correctness (right & wrong) but of the RIGHT of the owner to make copies. The opposite of copyright is "don't you dare copy that."
-The Reverend
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
If Contentville is selling you copies of a thesis, and they've acquired rights to distribute it either from UMI or because it's public domain, it's similarly just fine for them to charge zero or reasonable or truly outrageous prices for the friendly (?) PDF download or the dead tree version. On the other hand, if they assert that they own copyright on the copy they sent you, they'd better have done a really careful job of checking their UMI contracts, you're doing a public service by suing them
On the other hand, providing abstracts is fair business, and a useful service to the community.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've just finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for summer reading. Sorta intresting - in one chapter, Huck lies to his aunt, explaining why he was late. He says that a boiler blew on the steamship he was travling on. When his aunt asks if anyone was hurt, he says "No one, just a black man." She sighs, relieved that no one was hurt.
Apply that to this story as you will. Some parallels you might use would be music artists as black people and PhD's as whites...
Where would be the sence of GPLing the thesis?
It would not avoid the thing above!
If you GPL your thesis no one, not even you!
could prevent me selling it for $99.
Because this is a reasonable charge and fully
covered by the GPL.
First action should be to go after them as they
wen't after Npapster etc.
They distribute, without having a license,
copyrighted material.
Regards,
angel'o'pshere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Reading in the library and quoting from it
is fair use.
Taking it awy and selling copies is close to
slavery.
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It's legal because thesis papers and the like are usually published into the public domain without expectations of any royalties.
In which world do you live? Without wanting to
flaim you, but this is totaly silly!
Only things an artist/author/whatsoever PLACES
into the Public Domain is in the public domain(
well, there are some exceptions, especialy about
time outs etc.).
EVERY work a human does falls under his own copyright.
ONLY!!! in the USA it is possible to transfer that copyright before hand!
Nearly all other countries do not even alow to
transfer the copyright! As an author you only
can ASSIGN certain rights resulting from your
copyright to someone else, e.g. your employer.
The problem is not royalities, the pure act
of redistributing and copying is the evil one.
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You are right in your oppinion but you mix something up:
Do you beliefe that YOUR work will bring something
back to the public while it is sold in printed
by such a company?
In fact the RIPP of the public by charging them
without notice where to get the original for free!
Your work brings enough back to the public by
being public available on your Universities
Web Site, being in libraries etc.
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I went for the non-thesis track for my M.S. Suckers. :)
Unix: Where
This and related posts are very good and informative. I shouldn't
have gone flying off the handle. But I still think there is serious
corporate hypocrisy here. They are using a database provided by
another provider (UMI) for free (for the public good), but
http://www.contentville.com wants to prohibit others from using their
database. Moreover, they are trying to sell something I would be
happy to give away for free.
My Ph.D. thesis is there. I'm going write them a note telling them
they cannot sell it. If they continue to sell it, they will be
hearing from my lawyers. Hypocritical corporate bastards!
Like YOU were gonna sell these theses! :)
Phrases like"secured for a short time"keep running through my head.So someone interpreted that in the
plain english it was written in rather than lawyerbonics.heh heh,so whats the problem
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
On Wired.com: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,38203,00. html.
Writers to Recover Millions from Uncover: Ruling in favor of authors as copyright holders, U.S, District Court Judge Fern Smith last month awarded $7.25 million to a group of five freelance writers. The class action suit claimed that Uncover, an Internet-based document delivery service, illegally sold magazine and scholarly articles without obtaining permission from, or compensating, the authors.
A few choice quotes from the CEO of UnCover, too, about authors who are unreachable, as well as getting rights on multiple authorship works.
[
I can't seem to find my paper on their site. What do I need to do (or what did I need to do) to get it listed? I have no problem with their profiting from the work, since I never really cared for the subject matter that much (what does a device driver programmer care about groupware?!?!), and I doubt they'll make any serious money from it.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Having finished my dissertation roughly a year ago, I remember pretty clearly how it worked here. I keep the copyright, but the university required that I grant it and UMI the right to publish it at they see fit.
>If you put your thesis under an explicit license like the GPL, it could be free for disemmination, but protected from being sold.
Bullshit.
Pure and simple.
There is NOTHING stopping me from taking a GPL program and selling it for $100,000. The people BUYING it then have the right to ask me for the source code. I then turn it over. If I cna convince someone to pay $100,000 for something that is already out there via FTP, I'll look into selling ice cubes to eskmos.
The buyers could re-compile that, and sell my GPL program for $50,000 $5,000 or free.
The *EFFECT* may be there is no $ value, because the GPLed code will eventually end up for free download.
Just because you may be in the habit of not paying for access to GPL code, it does not mean that there is 'protection from being sold'
For a 'protection from being sold' licence, see the DIKU licence. (this was used VS TSR years ago)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
It is legal because you probably gave them the right to sell copies on some contract or other. And you do get royalties 10% I believe.
I'm going to Caltech next month and hell, I've already been forced to sign away rights on any computer programs/algorithms that I develop as part of a class project so this isn't much of a surprise to me.
It's legal because thesis papers and the like are usually published into the public domain without expectations of any royalties. This has been the tradition of the academic community for well over 300 years. What Contentville is doing is compiling an index of all the published papers and making it easy to search and get them. Think of it as a value-added service. I have no problem with this because there's nothing forcing you to download the paper (you could easily ask for a copy from the author).
Now if Contentville suddenly started suing people for distributing and copying papers (even ones downloaded from their site) then there would be a problem. However, as long as Contentville is charging for the priviledge of searching through their database, then it okay by me.
I searched and found my father's PhD dissertation at Contentville, and he completed that in 1973! I also found a dissertation published in 1974 that I'm citing in my own thesis. When I finish, I will definitely be watching the copyright on it closely.
your university ultimately owns the intellectual property for you dissertation (why are they giving PhDs to idiots who can't read the fine print). Universities contract with other businesses to make dissertations widely available (UMI is the biggest).
Leave it to idiots at slashdot to think this is some big deal.
Honestly;
My sister told me her idea for a media warehouse where people at college or whatever school could search for materials online (but pay respective owners for information if not public domain) in a more productive fashion.
So i took the initiative and e-mailed "nick sheth" i think his name was, at some big company.. cnn, nbc, somethin like that.
I explained everything, then he replied to me asking from more info. So i gave him some more ideas... And that was the last i ever heard of it..
Ahh well... what to do. I'm just upset they've turned a useful productive idea into such a cheap 'e-commerce' experience.
-Tomaj
--Clay
2. They are claiming they own content they have never written and that they own the copyright. Napster users trade music, they don't claim they created it.
3. You've just accused us all of music piracy. I am completely within my rights to have an MP3 copy of a song I have purchased as long as I am not selling/redistributing it and only have one instance of that song playing at a time on whatever platform I please, wherever the hell I please.
--Clay
I have just written to Contentville's copyright department. It is true that the issuing school has rights to most dissertations, but when I completed mine I also paid extra to own the copyright myself. I never gave permission to have my dissertation sold and I have let Contentville know that they cannot sell without my express permission. I thank Slashdot for alerting me to this infringement and it will be interesting to see how these pirates respond.
Jon Udell wrote this column at byte: Selling Ice Cubes To Eskimos
excerpt: "Contentville isn't selling ease of access or convenience, so much as an editorial process that selects and (one would hope) contextualizes items of interest. Is that valuable? Hugely so. In an era of crushing information overload, we depend on editorial services to draw important matters to our attention, and frame them in a useful context. What bothers me about Contentville is the way it misrepresents the nature of its service. If there's real editorial effort involved (and you can, of course, judge for yourself the quality of Contentville's editorial process), then isn't that the product I should be asked to pay for? Or as in the case of byte.com, that advertisers should be asked to pay for?"
So, if the Universities own the copyrights, does anyone know how Contentville (logo looks like Sesame Street) came to aquire the rights to these published works?
Were Universities duped by corporate promises to provide a database driven outlet for perhaps difficult to find published material? Or was there some kind of fiscal transaction that was slipped under the radar of most people? Maybe someone has more information they can share...
This type of proprietary access to database information is a scary precedent...Why should access to publicly funded research information be pay-per-view?
What the heck?.....BIOTECH!
This probably applies to American and other theses as well, but here's a statement from the Canadian Theses Service.
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/services/theses-e.htm
In part:"A number of authors of Canadian theses have expressed concern about finding references to their works on Contentville.com, an American Web site. The National Library of Canada is pleased to have the opportunity to clarify misunderstandings relating to the policies and operations of its Canadian Theses Service program.
Every title in the theses collection has been submitted to the National Library with a non-exclusive licence signed by the author, which gives the Library unrestricted authority to reproduce and sell copies of the thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats. The licence also gives the Library the authority to contract this work to third parties. The National Library will not accept any thesis for inclusion in its program without this written permission..."
I signed such a declaration when I submitted my MSc a couple of years ago.
My thesis is available online for free to whoever wants it. I understand it's a wonderful sleep aid :-)
so if your mom wants a copy of her Thesis, she has to pay $30 to $60? But they dont have yours yet so you don't have the rights too it, but you still can't buy back your own work either?
I don't think i'm ever going to college now...
So as not to see anyone dissuaded from writing a thesis, the author of the thesis always retains copyright, so the student has the right to duplicate and distribute their own thesis as much as they want. If you want UMI to print you a copy of your own thesis, you have to pay them, but presumably you'd still have a copy on your computer or whatever to print.
If it weren't for the fact that Napster is free you wouldn't have to *remove gratuitously incorrect Napster comparison there*
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
I think that you may be missing the point of the coplaint. Most people are very willing to distribute the information that is in their thesis, however the fact that some company is SELLING their work is galling. Not at all the same situation as napster/gnutella. Of course if the info on the page is true, then all sales of thesis are tracked for royalty reasons.
-- Hail Eris
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
It sounds like they may just be selling the packaging (ie Hardback, Softback, Unbound) like Red Hat sells the CD and manuals. I don't know about the legal status regarding the copyrights, but atleast they are "supposedly" paying any applicable royalties.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
It's one thing to distribute freely something that is not meant to be distributed freely (i.e. music) under current copyright laws (*), as in the Napster case, and it is another thing to distribute for a price something that is meant to be distributed for free.
I've read your post probably a six or seven times while reading this article and the above sentence still makes no sense at all.
People like you who are pro-Napster just because you want free music have missed most of what the Napster argument is about. The reason musicians are mad at Napster and why some slashdotters were originally mad at Contentville is because people are distributing works they have no right to distribute. Whether they are making money or not is incidental.
Question: If I go into an Arts and Craft store and shoplift some hand crafted items, then distribute them on street corners for free, am I suddenly right because I didn't sell them?
Your +4 Insightful post seems to say so.
The Queue Principle
First of all, Napster plans to make money off their service. Venture capitalists have thrown millions of dollars at it and the company is merely in the loss leader-gaining mindshare phase. Eventually they'll either run banner ads or they'll become a pay service. Either way they will be making money off people who are downloading/distributing music that they have no right to download or distribute. Buy an issue of Fortune or Forbes sometime and hear what the CEOs and VCs have planned.
Secondly, so what if someone makes money off creating a website where people can easily find theses? After all your not making a living of it. Also they are providing a service by giving people an easy way too locate theses and are supporting this by charging for them. Do you think running websites costs nothing?
Now contrast this with you're Napster arguments that it is OK to give away music that musicians depend on to make a living.
Twisted isn't it?
The Queue Principle
-rev
|permission for their work to be distributed? Why
|do people on slashdot complain about *their*
|copyrights being violated, yet vehemently defend
|their right to violate the copyrights of
|musicians? It all seems silly to me...
Why is this hypocracy ? Do you think everyone who reads slashdot shares everyone else's opinion about everything posted ?
Get real.
If everyone on slashdot agreed with my opinions then there wouldn't be any point in reading the comments.
I think Napster is being used to rip off artists copyright, just as it looks like contentville might be doing something silmilar. Where's the hypocracy in that ?
If you disagree with what someone says about one topic then fine, then argue against it, but don't think everyone who reads slashdot thinks the same.
The school year is rapidly approaching, and my GPA sux. I had better join a fraternity so that I can access their umpteen years of exams and class notes to study so I can ace my classes.
My real point is that it's all a matter of two things--content and visibility/scope of the information. My example above is roughly the same as the pre-internet days of sharing music. The audience is rather local. Jump ahead to the Gorian internet and suddenly information is everywhere, available to anyone. I could make available over the web the notes and exams from several universities. This to me is Napster. Now, would I get sued by somebody, maybe by the professors, maybe by the university? What if I sell the notes and exams? I figure I would definitely get sued now basically because of all the Tuition Paying Units the universities miss out on.
(Note: I thought there was some web sites last year that were going to try this?)
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Well, the problem is that I don't write papers for profit, nor do I turn them in to my PIAA-affiliated paper label to sell and give me 1/30 of what they sell it for because I have no other choice if I want my paper to be read. I instead turn in my papers that were not intended to EVER be sold, and somebody tries to make money off of them without giving me ANY cut. I don't make any money when I trade a song on Napster...
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
So, it might benefit you more this way because it'll be easier when doing research to track down dusty theses chock full of unpublished results.
If I recall, the UMI agreement works out to something like $7 for every thesis sold if more than 5(?) are sold in one year. OK, the chances of my seeing dime of $$$ is slim (although my thesis was a big hit in Russia and Eastern Europe, so I"m told :-), but it's
not the rip-off that was initally portrayed
although it WOULD have been nice if Contentville
had had a FAQ explaning things.
If I learn more, I'll post it.
As I see it, fine print could be put to good use if someone published thesis's online for FREE. The fact that someone is trying to make money of ones work is what I see people getting mad about.
Peace.
A free software group should compile a databse of MP3s. Then that data would be protected and the artists would have to pay to sing thier own songs. That would certinaly illustrate how foolish this is.
Government is the abdication of your responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy. Anarchy(absence of government)is the a
I know that there are some major differences, like selling the copyrighted material as opposed to distributing it for free, but when you boil it down, there both stealing. How can you complain if your hard work is being pirated if you run napster and gnutella?
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but everyone seems to be so pro-napster, and the general vibe is: "screw the big rich music companies." However, when others do similar activities, there is a cry for help.
------------------------------------------
If God Droppd Acid, Would he see People???
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
How did this place get your Thesis? Why is it for sale and did ContentVille get the copyright tranferred with it?
Post the name of the ContentVille Villiage Idiot(tm) in an update, so I have a scapegoat if I find mine there...
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
ok, so its illegal to share music over the net because we're supposed to pay for it blahaalalal...whatever...
NBC can *SELL* written works done by students and what not, *without* giving the writers a share of the profit....
...am I missing something here?
I set my homepage to pornsites so I don't have to keep opening browser windows
so if your mom wants a copy of her Thesis, she has to pay $30 to $60? But they dont have yours yet so you don't have the rights too it, but you still can't buy back your own work either?
I don't think i'm ever going to college now...
Actually, I saw this discussed on a writing group a little bit ago and and it was clear that while some of the work was there from that sort of "he said they could reproduce it and then they said these other guys could too" other work was there that they had absolutely no rights to. They are stealing work, not just of phd students or whathaveyou but of freelance writers and others.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
No offense, but this is naive. I first saw this site discussed on a freelance writers group - the kind of people who know exactly what rights they have and haven't given. And while some of their work that people found they had signed "electronic rights" to someone who then passed them along, other work they knew for a fact that they had sold only "first serial".
To assume that because some people have sold rights to their dissertation, all dissertations there are legal is just silly, especially considering the other copyright violations on the same site.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
well...it sounds like they're getting agreements, just not from the authors of the works. Hence the posting of the article.
I think it basically comes down to fair use. I am a proponent of Napster because people are distributing the material for free. No one is making a buck when an mp3 changes hands (at least i have never done anything to financially support napster).
However, when people are trying to make a buck off of work that isn't theirs...personally i think that's fucked. If they were giving these theses away for free...i'd say tough shit to the authors. That's their deal. Free it should be. But if they're gonna make money off the author's work...the author should get a cut.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
it's never a question of "is what i'm doing illegal?"
it's a question of "Is what i'm doing going to REALLY piss off big business enough for them to get it made illegal?"
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
...yeah, nuthin' quite like the smell of a phat class action lawsuit.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Simply put, I find it slightly odd that these people are being backed by CBS and a variety of other companies that are all complaining about piracy (whether it be of music, video, etc). I can't really see how something of this nature would even be allowed. How can they complain about napster/etc while backing things like this? If I were a PhD and found my thesis for sale on this site, I would be ripped. Take care, Peace, and happy hacking Rob
---
Rob Flynn
---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin
You can also pay your hard earned money for documents that aren't copyrighted at all. Go here to pay $2 for a Lord Byron speach from 1827!
That's pretty much my whole point. If you put your thesis under an explicit license like the GPL, it could be free for disemmination, but protected from being sold. Having a license applied to your material gives you a legal leg to stand on, if push comes to shove.
How applicable would the GPL be to essays and thesis papers? Would anyone be willing to GPL their research the same way they GPL their source? After all, for the majority of Linux hackers, hacking is as much about learning new stuff (research) as it is producing a finished product.
In preparing my dissertation I read recently that the "Berne Convention" held that even if one does not put a page which says "Copyright owner 2000"
One still automatically retains a copyright for a thesis.
Incidentally, my soon-to-be-submitted dissertation on astronomy contains several computer programs written in a proprietary language (IDL-interactive data language) However, FSF encouraged me to release the software under the GPL, since the software itself can be free even if you need to pay for a proprietary language to run it.
The authors probably wouldn't care if their work was distributed by these, but this site is stealing their work, selling it, and taking the rights to it, without permission.
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
And at $30 a time, this is anything but free. Sure, charge for printing, charge for postage and packaging, charge for technical support, but charging for download as a pdf?
I just called Ms Seda to discuss the matter of her selling my copyrighted work. I was very polite, I simply want to know by what right her company can sell my work. She didn't answer, so I left a message that included my telephone number. I don't suppose I'll ever hear back from her, but if I do I'll post a follow-up here.
BTW, my thesis is available for free from my web page. Truth be told, I'm always so happy whenever anyone wants to read the damn thing that I trip over my own feet to email them a copy. It's not that I expect to make money off of this, I would have just liked to have been notified in advance. The irony is that I now know how the musicians feel about Napster.
It's one thing to distribute freely something that is not meant to be distributed freely (i.e. music) under current copyright laws (*), as in the Napster case, and it is another thing to distribute for a price something that is meant to be distributed for free.
This is stupid. When you write something, you own the copyright. Most American universities have 'publication' in some form as a requirement for the Ph.D. You can publish it through an academic press, if you're lucky, but most people opt for a more automatic method. Some universities "publish" dissertations as working papers or even by putting X copies in the library system; however, the majority have an arrangement with University Microfilms to do it for them. You fill out a form, send your copy to UMI, they microfilm it, and pay you royalties for any copies they sell. I've made about a hundred bucks on mine since 1992--insignificant. You also give UMI an abstract, which they publish in Dissertation Abstracts both in hard copy and on line. This is the abstract you're seeing at Contentville--it's not "stolen" and neither is the dissertation.
It's quite likely that this process is treated as so pro forma at many universities that authors are ardly even aware that it's happening. But the original copyright holder retains copyright and is due royalties per the agreement with UMI.
It seems when there are articles talking about music everyone here on slashdot is of the opinion it should be free and that things like napster are ok. Yet when we are talking about work that some people on slashdot create actually being distributed everyone screams bloody murder? Is it just me or does this seem a tad hypocritical? I mean, sure - this webpage is trying to make money - but then again so is napster (hence the reason investors have given them millions of dollars).
Mine is there and I never gave them permission to sell it. As far as I know, I am the sole owner of the copyright on my thesis.
How many musicians on napster gave their permission for their work to be distributed? Why do people on slashdot complain about *their* copyrights being violated, yet vehemently defend their right to violate the copyrights of musicians? It all seems silly to me...
If an unregistered copyright is broken the owner can sue for the damages associated with the violations only but not the court costs. If the copyright is registered then both the damages and the court costs can be recovered.
The question is if the thesis in question is registered. If not then the cost of the lawsuit probably will be over the cost of the damages.
The University of Chicago used to be very bad about this (and also withheld all their theses from UMI, so you didn't have anywhere else to go). I don't know if this is still the case, however.
Really? I am in UofC and I don't hear anythign about this.
AFAIK, I see theses being thrown everywhere. People here LOVED to throw their theses everywhere. It's called "Citation".
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I see it like a Red Hat thingie. You can get it free, but you can pay a bit to get them "easier" format. (THough I doubt anything is easier than me eamiling them a latex document :)).
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Who would be very very happy to send you a copy!
:) ), ping me and I'll be more than happy to send them a copy.
:).
I've asked for theses from the original authors before, and they are always happy to oblige by sending a copy.
Academic people have given up their rights to a thesis,which is owned by the university (who provide them happily too).
So what the heck are they trying to do?
If anyway is interested in my thesis (when I am done in a few years that's it
Why the generosity? Research is sponsored mostly by public funds, so the research goes back to the public.
Besides, it's always gratifying to know your thesis is interesting to some people
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I read most of the previous comments and well, I agree that some people here are hypocritical about this. Love Napster, Hate these people, Uggh. Need music, free music. There's my paper, they cannot do this I want to sue!
Hrmm, demonstrates the law suit happy nature of people these days. This not being a good or a bad thing but just is. Like chocolate fudge brownies just is. Mmmm... I think I know what I'm baking tonight. Now back to the topic, sorta.
As much as I like the concept of napster I greatly dislike some aspects of it. It should be the Artist providing a digital copy of the song note joe blow user who doesn't know how to use a MP3/OOG/WAV/AU/... encoder and rip from the CD. Seriously the artist has a better master version anyways and can probably get the MP3 sounding just as good if not better than a CD.
Now these people come along and start selling research papers that they appear to have gotten legally (remember that stack of paperwork you signed your life away on when you entered college?) and many complain.
To me the same argument holds true for both napster, gnutella, freenet, and friends just as much as it does for this. This is the type of information that wants and needs to be free for the benifit of all the human race. We shouldn't be fighting over who owns which idea, but increasing the body of knowledge at hand rather than constantly re-inventing the wheel.
We program with dynamic libraries in various forms so we can write the program and not spend weeks customizing the startup, i'm loading so wait for me dialog box. We don't reinvent the code as it is there for us to use. How is it we suddenly have the right to complain about Napster doing the same (making use of songs for culture and musicians to build on) or even these people (making use of research papers to further the body of scientific or other knowledge so we don't have to repeat the same mistakes).
I don't know about the rest of the people here but I think these people have the basis for a good service. If done in a way that gives a bit of credit to the authors so much the better. If not well someone should start their own service and fix it.
This is a good idea. I don't feel like wasting money, time or equipment on a path that is known and proven to fail. I think money, time, and all that should be used to further the knowledge for the sake of knowledge instead of the current for product that makes money. Yes everyone needs to get payed to eat but ever wonder if our society model was flawed?
--
The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead.
Steven Brill, so-called "media watchdog"
"so-called"? Maybe our kneejerk cynicism is getting a little out of hand. While I don't agree with everything he does, Brill's Content is one of the few magazines I find worth reading. It's also one of the few places where you can get a good, hard look at how the media operates, and probably the only such place that would qualify as mainstream press (as in you can find it in most well-equipped bookstores).
--
Have a license/copyright statement that says if you redistribute it in any way, that you can not forbid redistribution from anyone that receives it. Even if they try to use some database protection act (if it passes) to forbid redistribution, they would be stuck. They would lose the right to distribute it at all. If they did, then YOU could sue THEM for copyright infringement. And get criminal charges filed too.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
This is what contentville say about the dissertation's on their site:
<br><br><blockquote>
Where do Contentville's dissertations come from?<br>
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.</blockquote><br><br>Place your bets - redundant or informative?
Mine is there and I never gave them permission to sell it.
Okay, so does this mean schools are taking your papers and selling them for profit to contentgalore? Are there possabilities here to make the school discount your tuition fee for the money they make on your thesis? Probably not since the rich rule this country.
-Effendi
-Effendi
Yep, you're right ... it takes about five minutes to figure this out ... and remembering that you signed over some rights to allow somebody like UMI to distribute your thesis. This connection becomes self-evident when you see that the prices charged by contentville are about the same as those charged by UMI. The contentville search engine seems better than UMI's though! ... I think I signed it in a hungover stupor a day after I made the final changes suggested by the committee ...
Errrrm, yes!
If it were distributed via Napster, nobody would be charging anything for my (freely distributable anyway) intellectual work.
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Well, let's see. In light of recent legal battles - what if I were to attach the code for say, DiVx and DeCSS, onto my thesis and they link it somehow - much like to all my other thesis's that I've noticed.
Does that mean that we can get the RIAA to sue them for us????
I find it a bit rich anyway to think of Brill as a Watchdog as at least in the UK any official Watchdog or Ombudsman would be expected not to actually operate commercially in the business area that he is meant to be overseeing. So at best he is a business leader.
It seems to me that commercial and intellectual property laws in the US are being seriously undermined from the point of view of the actual creator of any content. They are being biased to favour large companies who can afford to gather everyones work together and then litigate the little guy into oblivion.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
I suggest that you yourself give up the habit of setting up Straw Men (use of inconsistant, irrelevant, or just plain untrue information) to try and justify your arguments. If you can't prove your argument legitimately then maybe you are wrong.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
I don't know about other schools, but I do know that at RIT, they do posess a lot of control over your theses. In fact, RIT can claim copyright over anything done by students for a project, or created using school resources.
And you can get all the theses from the library.
As for Contentville, it seems that they have purchased some rights to these documents (or they are of the public domain).
It looks like some schools might be submitting their theses to this database to be incorporated, and then put up for sale.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Hmm.. I'll be creating a 'database' of work by NBC, CBS, Etc.. And offering it for a low cost online.. I intend to recouperate my set-up expenses by Suing these TV station for using the contents of MY database, because ICRAVETV!
Strange world we live in.
air and light and time and space
The prices from UMD are outrageous. Especially when you consider that they give a reduced size version of the thesis (it is 5 by 8 instead of 8.5 by 11).
It was much cheaper to go to Kinko's and have copies made.
Sorry, error. It is UMI, not UMD.
UMD is the University of Maryland (who was not my ph.d. granting institution) UMI is a company spun off by the University of Michigan, go blue....
What makes me mad about all of this is the following:
My university required me to have my thesis "published" by UMD
UMD requires that you hand over to them the right redistribute your thesis
You have to pay for this, out of pocket, the university passes the charges to you
UMD will then gladly sell you a copy of your dissertation at a 10% discount.
and UMD gets to sell these things to other people, hence UMD is making money off of Contentville.
Besides, the bastards are slow (my thesis is not online yet there but you can find it here. At least they have my my moms online....
It would be nice if some of the facts were checked before the editors went ahead and started posting these inaccuracies.
Technically, they are not selling your theses, they are selling a database service. And in many cases if you show your theses to anyone including employers, schools, or post it on the web, your retain the copyrights, but it is considered open for public viewing.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I would like to point out that Napster is a service connecting other peoples computers together, they are not hosting contene or avocating piracy in any way. Contentvil is hosting material they do not own, charging for it and not giving proper due to the authors.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Hell, why doesn't someone start up a website with the same thesis' on them & offer them at a minimal cost.
Say, charge photocopy, binding, postage etc, but not the fees that are being charged.
It would be a great service to the people doing research out there who are looking for thesis which aren't availabel locally. Maybe even throw in a search engine. I'm sure someone would be willing to do it.
Macros
The answer to this is to develop a GPL'd database / search program that will allow a committee too easily classify and dissect a thesis submitted for violation of copyright and due credit for the original work.
And a side benefit would be, a very powerful aid in research. Find what you need so you only invent the part of the wheel you need, not the whole yugo. Would be a very good tool for preventing duplicate work.
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
It's similar to the arguments for open source software's security: if you think there might be something sketchy inside, open it up and take a look. You don't neccesarily even have to have the right to change or copy it, but you should be given the opportunity to see exactly what's in there, if only to check for security risks, illegaly copied code, etc. With big, aggregated databases protected, we will lose the ability to know exactly what kind of data is being collected about and from us, and from where.
The sad thing is, this company will probably do quite well. They're using the most realistic model for online publishing that I've seen in a long time, and I don't see Congress going against the combined will of just about every major media company, advertiser, and retail company in the nation just to protect trifles like consumer rights or privacy.
There already has been posts about it but who really owns the thesis? Most cases, Ph.D students are considered employees of the university and university usually owns the copyright to the thesis. However, in the United States, most research are funded by the federal government (NSF, etc...). Then shouldn't (at least part) of the thesis belong to the public? Also, in another note, why don't some just start up a free thesis database where people can just submit whatever? Since we would be making our own database, any laws restricting database should not be applicable.
...they have enough money to make it a real pain in the ass to get the money you deserve for the sale of your work. I hope someone nails their ass anyway and get a big chunk of cash out of TIME. As far as I'm concerned that company is pure evil.
Most of my writing is all done outside the US, and my master's was written in the US, and I don't see my work anywhere in Contentville at all. Done so much publishing I thought I would.
If I EVER see anything of mine up there, I will be suing the living daylights out of them.
Any non-US-based folks out there who see their work being stolen from them and sold for a profit by the so-called watchdog? Brill seems to think everybody else should have to abide by the laws that he doesn't have to.
Podej mi tento talir s koblihama....
Alot of people are comparing this to napster. Napster facilitates person to person, noncomercial file sharing. Contentvile is doing buisness to consumer, commercial file sale.
-Compenguin
These companies are in Congress right now lobbying for a law to protect databases - that is, to make re-using information from places such as Contentville illegal. Not just copying the information, but even using any of the data or facts from databases would be illegal.
Since they obviously pulled these off various University databases themselves, I can distinctly hear the sound of the proverbial shit heading towards the fan blades.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Hopefully you mean suing the living daylights out of contentville is cool, and that after it is a smoldering pit that cant put a price tag on thesii making them free as in beer if not speech. But otherwise, you should note that Contentville is in fact charging for stolen ideas.
Riiiight... and I suppose that since you live in [insert country here], the government should be able to sell all of your belongings for extra cash? After all, you bought them all with [insert currency], and your house sits on the land that belongs to [country]...
Somehow I can't seem to see that logic.
PS: I'll sell anyone the same thesis, rights and all, for $20 Australian (which is about $2.50 Amerikan).Thats heaps cheaper than "contentville".
This site only lasted a month before public scrutiny began to threaten it. How long was Napster running before it was seriously legally threatened? :)
Why is this such a clear-cut case of infringement on the rights over intellectual property, while the Napster snafu was/is not? It seems like the public at-large feels entitled to music since it is created as a product, while your average doctorate thesis is not expected, by the author to become a commodity. Thoughts?
I know, lets get about a million small time "pirates" to get together and lobby to make this database law apply to cd database.. That way people can compile a large array of stolen programs and not get busted for it!!!
sigh, I hate america.. Only here can someone get sued for making a program to share music or other files over the internet while other companies can appropriate other peoples work (these thesis') while making a law to make it illegal to use your own work.
Has everyone in this fucking country lost their minds? How, exactly, do these people go home at night and justify their actions to their families?
I can see it now..
"Well son, I had a long day at the office today, I had to bribe a lot of politions to get a law passed to make it illegal for you to use your own thesis after someone compiles it into their database.. I have a longer day tomorrow, I'm getting a law tacked onto an unknown bill that is so obscure that half of congress doesn't know what it is to make it illegal to tax anyone who makes more than half a million each year.. In fact I'll make it so rich people like us can tax the government!. Oh and sorry junior, It's also illegal now to sell anything you own after you buy it.. make any cars you buy last as long as you can, you can't sell them."
Rigght, when we get that far I'm moving to a country that "Gets It".
So, then a fact contained in their database: "The Earth is round" is their's to keep and we must all go back to thinking otherwise, please I think not. The bedrock of further formd of copyright is the ability to own what you create. Just like the gnome project, they do not own the strand of DNA, just their description of the organization of it. It does not preclude someone else from writing down the same sequences. The conundrum would be that they would have to show their database to prove that something is or is not in it, and that is the flaw. They would never open it up to public scrutiny for the lawsuit.
Since writing a thesis is not a work for hire, wouldn't rights to a thesis revert back to the author after X (30 or something I think) years? So once this period of time has passed, anything they still have for sale would be a clear-cut copyright violation.
And this whole database thing? That's total BS. Outlook keeps a list of my email contacts. Does that mean that those people can't use their own email addresses? How about a playlist of legally owned mp3s? Since all mp3's are originally legal, does this mean that the bands don't have the copyright anymore, so it's a moot point?
We've seen several different articles on /. recently about intellectual property and the rights/responsibilities that come along with it. Some people are pushing for programmers to be responsible for how what they create is used, and some are pushing for abolution of intellectual property as technology makes copying and distributing such works easier and easier. Both viewpoints seem to get a fair amount of backing in the form of court rulings and new legislation.
Is anyone else seeing a catch-22 developing here? Force the creators to stop people from using their creations negatively, but take away their ability to decide how and where their creation can be distributed/used.
Personally I think the Napster case will have it's greatest impact, not on the music industry, but on the computing industry. We're seeing our future being ruled and legislated right now. I'm going to keep a close eye on this and contact my representatives if I see something that concerns me, it may not work, but I'd rather try to stop stupid laws from making my livelyhood impossible than just leave the country when the stupid laws get passed.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
This really doesn't suprise me at all, the right wing politicans who suck more funds from education for defense and give tax cuts for the rich seem to be in the same boat as these corporate media goons. It would benift them to dumb down students and education (after all, doesn't corporate media frequently speak out on behalf of the "virtues" of censorship software in schools and libraries?
Call me paranoid a lot but I think this is just a sceme to make us illiterate unknowladgable drones in their business regime. Too bad you didn't get that diploma, but you can always flip burgers or take tickets or sweep floors.
So quick with fear you tiny fools!
Selling one copy, at these prices, would generate $10 in sales for just one book. But the agreements most of us signed did not provide for royalties until seven copies were sold in any one year. Me, I doubt anyone has ever bought a copy of my 1995 dissertation, except maybe my mother, and even she did not buy seven copies. OceanBarb, Ph.D.
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An Education is the Font of All Liberty
"and here i am using my own lungs like a sucker!" - Homer Simpson
This seems to be yet another over-reaction by the Slashdot community. I would rather that slashdot posted a handful of more accurate stories than post a dozen flawed stories each day.
I wish that the story posters would realize that half of the stupidity and misinformation in comments seems to directly result from something that is flawed in the original posting of a story. Keep in mind that a good many people would rather spout something inane rather than actually read a link. For that reason, if you post a story, please try to keep it accurate. If you cannot be neutral and feel you must make a statement for freedom or some other cause then try to say something intelligent. Otherwise it is just so much trolling and flaimbaiting right on the homepage! (Last time I posted something like this, I got modded down as flamebait. But I am going to put my karma on the line yet again because I am not a coward.)
The National Post ran a story about this very subject this morning (15 Aug 2000)
= /stories/20000815/370726.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f
Although it would be nice if the Slashdot people researched a bit before posting stories, I've noticed that the comments by readers tend to straighten everything out in the end, so I don't get too concerned. I generally take the stories themselves with a grain of salt, check out any links, and then see what other readers have to say before making any conclusions.
I also suspect Slashdot is so overloaded with story submissions that they don't have time to check them over. When I tried submitting a story a month or so ago, there was a line that said something like "459 stories in the submission queue." Just reading the summaries users give for those stories must take enough time--having to go check links that may be pages and pages long is probably not feasible.
By me "saying it first," I was saying that the inevitable (and inaccurate) comparisons should go ahead and get out of the way.
While Napster is free to use, it remains similar in that Contentville, like Napster, seems to be attempting to make a profit off of the work of others.
Contentville's main page says a little about their source:
I did some random checks on professors at my (very recent) alma mater, NCSU. Several of the CSC professors had dissertations on Contentville, mostly their doctoral thesis (the dates were roughly equivalent to their Ph.D schools and dates). Their newer material was NOT listed. Odd...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Well, I would hope so. I'll keep my slant on a Computer Science track since that's what I know.
:)
I just got my BS in Computer Science. I don't count myself as a 'post-grad' in the sense I used it earlier. However, with just a BS, I'm well on my way to being deep-pocket-ed
There are plenty of Master's and Ph.D holders with hefty incomes (salary, options, patent rights...the list goes on). With just a BS, a comp sci major at least has a shot at 2 or 3 of those wallet-padding sources.
If I had a dissertation and a Master's, and I saw material I knew to be both mine and not freely-available except through me, I'd gladly throw a chunk of change at protecting my copyright through legal action. Not out of spite, not because I "can", but because I don't believe anyone else should be making money off of my hard work. If someone wants to read/critique/quote/research from my material, GREAT! I'll send it to you in email, discuss it with you live, review/encourage what you're doing, because that's part of why people DO post-graduate work. But I won't charge you for my material, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to pay someone else for it. If you have to drop 20 bucks at Kinko's to print it out, that's one thing. But the fees on Contentville look a bit pricey to be merely media-distribution costs.
Bottom line, Content-ville is seeking to make a profit without fairly compensating the author's they're brokering. And that's wrong.
Semi-related Napster Rant:
Obviously, I have problems with similar efforts, including Napster. I think the Record Labels are Very Bad Things (tm), but Napster's goal of making a profit off of their service is little better, IMHO.
*Gets off his soapbox*
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
It's going to be said, so I may as well say it first ... *insert gratuitous Napster comparison here*
Seriously, though, I'd be surprised if this site stays up long -- all it takes is one high-profile, deep-pocket post-grad seeing his material on this site.
Can anyone post details on these Database protection bills? I want to lay the smack down but I need the details first...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
I mean really, if you annoy EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever written a thesis with your website, do you really think those people, a ton of whom ARE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, are going to shop with you?
I get the feeling the market is going to decide Contentville's fate long before the court system are done with them.
sig:
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
And if anybody really wants a copy of Integrodifference equations applied to plant competition and control, I suppose I could dig up the (LaTeX and
==Jake
DOS attack ...... fight fire with fire.
Hmmm...it's Napster for Theses... Theses want to be free... maybe Natalie Portman will buy a copy of your Thesis (Beowulf Cluser of Hot Grits)... (did I miss any cliches?)
Seriously, as someone else mentioned, research work is normally partly, if not wholly, owned by the university. If you produce work that can be patented and/or sold, the university receives part of the proceeds.
Copyright - there is a defacto copyright that you get just by adding Copyright 2000 Joe Schmoe to your work. But it's not "official". For greater security, you can register it with the Library of Congress, I believe ($25 - $50).
Sorry for the fuzziness on the details - I've see both of these things at work (a friend trying to license his research, and another friend copyrighted his thesis since there may be future commercial uses).
How does this apply to Contentville? Well, the University could license the works to them. Also, all theses are archived on micro-fiche, which are accessible through archival places. It's very possible these works are licensed through the Univ. or through an archival service for distribution.
ShoutingMan.com
You can also order reprints from the university (and probably from the archival services - theses are usually archived on micro-fiche).
The question in my mind is, whether Contentville is paying royalties (or whatever) to the universities or did they just grab the theses, and are re-selling them. The former seems ok, the latter is of dubious legality in my mind.
ShoutingMan.com
Key excerpts:
The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright....Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created [and fixed in "tangible form"]
The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U. S. law, although it is often beneficial.
[Key to this particular topic:] In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author.
There is no such thing as an "international copyright" that will automatically protect an author's writings throughout the entire world....However, most countries do offer protection to foreign works under certain conditions
Copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Where do Contentville's dissertations come from?
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
It looks like Contentville is not the one actually collecting revenue from the documents themselves, maybe a broker's fee from the transaction. UMI is the actual seller of the theses.
This post is a great knee jerk reaction to Brill posting the theses online. However, I've read about this issue before, and I'm quite sure that most universities require you to partially sign away publication rights to your thesis. Under current law, what Brill is doing is perfectly legal, so comparisons to "burning hundreds of CDs" are misguided. Whether or not this is an ethical practice on the part of Brill is something else entirely, and I agree that it must be stopped at once.
It seems to me to be an arbitrary distinction. If you say that artists have no right to limit the distribution of their work by keeping their stuff off of Napster, then why should artists have any right to say that their works must be distributed for free (if at all)? Now, if that database-protection shit goes through, it's a whole new ballgame, but as it stands this should be no more morally repugnant from the Free-IPers perspective than Mandrake taking Redhat's drek and selling it as their own.
It is at least arguable that having an on-line collection of theses and disserations would be beneficial to progress and innovation.
I would say that it has greater potential to benefit society than a few million MP3's, at the very least.
Isn't that what it's supposed to be about? How many people are going to be harmed by having their master's thesis published without their consent? This reminds me a bit of the "abandonware" thing.
-------------
The truth is out th- oh, wait, here it is...
I respectfully disagree with the original poster of this article on a matter of fact. With respect to theses and dissertations, Contentville listings are derived from the UMI database. UMI also sells the dissertations and/or theses. Under the UMI contract, when a dissertation/thesis is purchased, the author is entitled to royalties. Likewise, when Contentville sells a dissertation/thesis, the sales are tracked and the royalties are paid as per the UMI agreement. There's a lengthy note on the Contentville website expressly about this.
The author of the dissertation/thesis is presumed to hold copyright. This material is not in the public domain. Nor is it GPL's or anything like it. Academic research is more like open-source software than anything else I can think of, but on this issue they differ quite a bit. Research is subjected to intensive scrutiny before publication; generally (some of) the data is made available to other researchers working in the same area, or to the referees of the journal where the paper has been submitted for publication. In this, it is very like open source software. However, once the study has been completed, the paper is no longer available for general revision and iterative commenting - any related studies must be sufficiently different as to constitute a new work.
On a point of opinion, I wholeheartedly agree with the original poster. I think that it is wrong for sites like this to conscript intellectual property and redistribute it without the author's knowledge. It came as an ugly shock to the faculty in my department to find that everyone's work is being sold on line in this manner. Makes it ever so much harder to ensure that UMI is complying with the royalty agreements
I've read most of the comments finally, and there's a lot of the same.
[Person 1] Contentville is evil for trying to sell work that is available elsewhere for free!
[Person 2] No they're not! It's just like Napster!
And so on.. However, I don't think that that's really the problem at all. I think the real problem here is that Contentville did something very stupid and/or arrogant. They posted someone else's work without asking or notifying the author. They did this to a lot of people.
Think of it this way: What if someone posted your work here on Slashdot, and didn't tell you? Would that person be evil?
As for charging for it, my personal feelings are that they're charging for the search. You could always do a search for the specific thesis somewhere else once you find what you might be looking for.
Mine is there too, but anybody who pays 60 bucks for it is a sucker! ;-)
"Extremism in defense of liberty is more fun."
The preface to Writing Space reads:
You may make as many electronic copies of this text as you wish. You may distribute these copies to anyone under any terms. You may give the disks away or sell them. If you can convince someone to pay you for an electronic copy of this text, take the money.
This was written in the late 80's, and sounds a lot like the GPL applied to a piece of scholarship.
Incidently, Writing Space is availible from Eastgate Systems in electronic form for $10US. :-)
One-ton tomato
because they block you if you won't accept cookies. Prima facia evidence of evil intent!
-The Mad Duke
Don't send any e-mails to this company. You'll probably inadvertantly violate one of the laws they paid for, and spend the next year trying to get Carnivore out of your inbox.
I would be very, very surprised if any of the authors of the listed dissertations failed to give permission to distribute their work. Almost everyone routinely signs over the rights to distribute their work to UMI. Contentville is just providing a front end to UMI. By the way, when I graduated, I explicitly denied UMI the right to distribute my dissertation, and my dissertation is not listed. The following appears on their website: Where do Contentville's dissertations come from? Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
Hey, my Ph.D. thesis is listed there too! And they want twenty-five bucks for a PDF version!!! MmmmmBWAAHHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAA! Tell ya what, *I'll* send you a *.ps or *.dvi or even *.tex copy via email ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! (On a more serious side, how on earth did they get an electronic copy of my dissertation? I submitted a paper version only. My school's billing system was screwed up when I turned my thesis in, so I didn't end up having to pay the #$%*& eighty-dollar fee to get it put in the national database. Did they really pay some work-study student flunky to scan in all those pages of crap that nobody will ever read? Yeesh!)
I posted my thesis on Dissertation.com, which is a site that sells both electronic and paper copies of your thesis with help of Amazon.com. If they sell more than 5 copies of your thesis, you get royalties on every copy they sell except the first 5. This year, some company actually bought 5 copies of my thesis. I wonder how dissertation.com will compete with UMI/Contentville.
Hmm, I just found out that my thesis is on dissertation.com but not contentville. I wonder if it's a coincidence :)
i believe the university of michigan is a repository of all u.s. dissertations (for perhaps 40+ years); though i couldn't find it on the site, might be a start.
Hi!
The Open Archive initiative might be useful here. It is intended to escape the so-called "tyranny" of the published journals, but it might serve to undermine such groups. Basically, you self-archive your thesis/papers, using the meta tag system covered in the Santa Fe convention, and then make them available for free online. If you have copyright problems, the answer I was given was to archive the penultimate version. Further info is at http://www.openarchives.org/
I suspect that these organisations would die if they couldn't sell the papers, so by providing them free in a format which makes them easy to find we should be able to cut their legs out from under them. I'm not a great fan of the initiative as it stands, but this might be an actual use for it.
So everyone who researches in a public library should automatically lose any rights to sell anything they wrote/created that was influenced by the materials in the public library? If I, a non-student, decide to write an article, and do some research in the local library, should I forgo my rights to payment just because that library was publicly funded? Even though as a taxpayer I paid for the right to use it? What about the internet then? Should anyone who researches on the internet lose all of their rights to payment too, since hey, the net was publicly funded and is now communally funded? Methinks someone needs to learn the difference between research and writing.
Regardless of whether Contentville has the rights, perhaps the question is what next? Clearly, there are policies in place, backed by tradition and University codes, that allow certain groups to make use of dissertations. Most people probably signed it away, not thinking that there was much if any chance that it would *ever* be read or duplicated. If someone had to go to the trouble of requesting a copy from the University itself, chances are slim that anyone but the most avid researcher would bother. On the other hand, many commercially available books started out as people's dissertations, simply spruced up for general consumption. They are making a small profit, and increasing their professional prestige by having a book published early in their careers. But how many publishers will buy rehashed dissertations if they know that anyone can get it online? How much will this service decrease the incentives of academic publishers? Some dissertations, especially engineering and scientific fields, can be very valuable. What if a student knows that their writing will be worth a lot of money in the future, and refuses to sign the agreement. If someone has already paid a small fortune to attend the uni, what will happen when they now have to surrender a valuable document in order to get their degree. And what if the Universities then broker it over the net themselves? Only a tradition has prevented such whoelsale exploitation, but what will stop them in the future? If Contentville makes a profit, who knows who else will spring out to make money off the backs of students.
So you know where I'm coming from--my main experience in grad school was in English, but I recently completed a grad degree in library science at the University of South Carolina (which I'm referring to when I say USC).
UMI sells theses and dissertations for authentically scholarly purposes--or at least, they did until they made them available on this commercial site. I do think the practice of a university selling its theses is technically illegal, but practically a necessity.
I found West Virginia's statement on ownership of scholarly products (http://www.wvu.edu/~osp/copyright.html), which is probably pretty typical. It says (section D) the university owns any thesis whose writer received any kind of monetary support (wages, salaries, stipend, or grant), which would include almost anyone who made it through grad school. Since the document's pretty comprehensive and doesn't mention dissertations, I'm guessing it's calling them theses.
However, it's more generous to faculty--it says (par. 2 of section B) as long as they weren't receiving funds specifically to produce what they produced, they get copyright, even though they're getting regular pay and use of facilities.
(I'm talking mostly about written products (rather than research), meaning particularly people in English departments--scientific and technical faculty are getting paid to do specific things--for instance, USC got a huge grant from the U.S. Navy to work on electric batteries, and even if the Navy didn't have an agreement in writing which says they get rights to any valuable research, the Navy would still get it because they're giving money specifically to have it done. In that case, the lines between scholarly and business activity become blurred. In essence, the Navy's opening up a research lab at USC using USC's people. It may not be fair for the Navy to get everything (the university's getting a new building and lots of money out of it), but it's consistent with copyright law, which favors employers and corporations. In principle, students could go elsewhere for their education. But given a student's relatively innocent and servile state, I think a student who (individually) produced something really valuable under those circumstances might have a valid legal argument to get more than a few dollars and an education.)
So why does the WVU statement include the "scholarly exception" for faculty and staff but not students? WVU may have some legal right to claim ownership to theses because they're paying the producers, but as far a copyright rulings go, once you make exceptions for an individual or group, you generally have to make the exceptions for everybody. I'm guessing that (1) universities' claims in regard to students' work have never been seriously challenged in court and that (2) WVU claims ownership of theses because they know they're going to send them to UMI,and they want to make their claim to do so as strong as possible. At least up until now, the only real value of a university's theses has been as a unit of exchange with UMI--in exchange for making their theses part of the UMI database (well known in academia as "Dissertation Abstracts"), WVU will get access to all the other theses that are in the database. That may be their only compensation, as that access is worth a lot to researchers (the USC library pays a couple thousand dollars for a year's access to significantly large databases--some are in the tens of thousands), though the balance of access and cash probably varies according to size and quality of university.
So yes, those theses are valuable to universities, but in the form of access to research rather than cash. On the other hand, someone (UMI) is making cash from them, but chiefly as a publisher of scholarly material. It's not an ideal arrangement, but it's the only one that works right now--the service that UMI provides is a very useful one for universities.
If theses do start being a source of significant commercial revenue (that's a big if), I'd bet that authors will eventually be compensated and share in the copyright (maybe something along the lines of WVU's 50-30-10-10 rule--see the WVU site under "Copyright Royalties"), but individual shares would be pretty small if they're sold as a body.
About theses that turn into books: A very high percentage of professors at the better universities have sold their dissertations, often only slightly revised, to publishers, and were not asked to share the royalties. Whatever universities put in their legal documents, they wouldn't dare start claiming copyright and royalty rights to the few student works that do make money (beyond their value in exchange with UMI--and I'm talking only about the written works themselves, not research and any proceeds from research). For one thing, it would be seen as stifling the academic freedom that's clearly recognized for faculty, and it really would put a chill on student production. It would also almost certainly cause the issue to be brought before the courts, where the university would probably lose--mainly because a judge would say that academic freedom is for everybody.
Scholarship and capitalism are strange bedfellows (think of the problems with athletics), and universities generally do what they have to to get by.
The most obvious course of action, if your thesis is being offered for sale without your permission and you feel aggrieved over it, is to first contact your thesis advisor and through him or her, your university's legal department. When you notify them, of course it makes sense to have done a search of Contentville's database so you can tell them how many of the university's theses are being offered for sale. Also, the university's legal staff can clarify your actual IP position. I think that NBC, CBS will be more likely to stand up and take notice when they get nasty letters from the legal departments of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, The University of Chicago, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, U. Michigan and..."perhaps Cornell." More likely than if they just get e-mails from a few ex-academics who are now computer programmers. My belief is that if they wants to provide information about theses on their database, they should be referring the queries to the university libraries, who, if the demand is there, can get permission from the faculty and students in question to make high-quality reprints of the thesis through the university press, or provide the information requested through their own (typically rather elaborate) web sites. My concern is that bad University Microforms reprints will be going out, and the quality of reproduction is utter crap. Only I have the TeX and PostScript source, and original figures of my thesis (The Nonlinear Dynamics of Thermal Convection, The University of Chicago, 1990). Quite frankly, I do not want bad reproductions of my thesis being distributed. Scholars know to expect bad reproduction quality when they order theses from University Microforms, but your mass market is going to be quite contemptuous of university research when they purchase something like that sight unseen, and find they've gotten an illegible pig in a poke. So, it's really the universitys' prestige that's threatened by pirate operations like these contentvillians. The universitys therefore have a vested interest in controlling the quality of the presentation of their scholarly productions, as well as making sure these reproductions are being used for scholarly purposes -- rather than to make the bucks on the IP which the university, the faculty member and the student should equitably share.