Fair Use In Scientific Blogging

GrumpySimon writes "Recently, the well-read science blog Retrospectacle posted an article on a scientific paper that concluded that alcohol augments the antioxidant properties of fruit. The blog post reproduced a chart and a table from the original article and everything was fully attributed. When the publisher John Wiley & Sons found out, they threatened legal action unless the chart and table were removed. Understandably, this whole mess has stirred up quite a storm of protest. Many people see Retrospectacle's action as plainly falling under fair use. There is a call for a boycott of Wiley and Wiley's journals."

Comments

Ridiculous

[Corpuscavernosa]

Hey we all know that there's not much money in science, but seriously. This article embodies what fair use is all about.
From Sec. 107 of the Copyright Act.

...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

It doesn't get more simple than this. They've been hanging out with the RIAA too much...

Re:Ridiculous

[squidfood]

Please note: Wiley has responded and resolved the issue favorably, blaming the matter on a juinor staffer... and asking for no abusive email to the junior staffer...

Re:Ridiculous

[inviolet]

Please note: Wiley has responded and resolved the issue favorably [scienceblogs.com], blaming the matter on a juinor staffer...

Ah, I see that Wiley has followed Washington D.C.'s lead: before doing something objectionable, hire a junior staffer for blame absorption.

Unless, of course, anyone here actually believes that Wiley allows junior staffers to send out such demands without supervision. Uh huh.

On a more general note... these sorts of arguments about Fair Use are normal, healthy, and will occur regularly. Freedom and/or democracy means that there will be a great deal of public bickering. It's a Good Thing, because it means a) we aren't afraid to differ, b) we aren't afraid to talk about it, and c) we believe our countrymen are open to rational argument. A tolerance for this sort of tumult is a prerequisite to being a free society. Compare this to the fearful silence of a dictatorship.

Agreed, and more so...

[RingDev]

What's the point in publishing a paper that you want no one to cite!?

-Rick

They are known for extortion too!

[Chickan]

Wiley & Sons are notorious in my book for being a bunch of crooks. They threatened to sue me over including a copy of the answers with a text book I was selling on a popular auction website. The sent me an extortion letter claiming if I paid $100 per copy sold and refrained from selling it in the future everything would be forgiven, or else they would sue me in court. It took several phone calls and a letter from my lawyer to get out of the mess. I wasn't even charging for the cd key!

Academic journals are generally a mess

[Gogl]

As a budding academic the state of publications and intellectual property is quite depressing. This is a good writeup on it, pertinent excerpt:

I have an ingenious idea for a company. My company will be in the business of selling computer games. But, unlike other computer game companies, mine will never have to hire a single programmer, game designer, or graphic artist. Instead I'll simply find people who know how to make games, and ask them to donate their games to me. Naturally, anyone generous enough to donate a game will immediately relinquish all further rights to it. From then on, I alone will be the copyright-holder, distributor, and collector of royalties. This is not to say, however, that I'll provide no "value-added." My company will be the one that packages the games in 25-cent cardboard boxes, then resells the boxes for up to $300 apiece.

But why would developers donate their games to me? Because they'll need my seal of approval. I'll convince developers that, if a game isn't distributed by my company, then the game doesn't "count" -- indeed, barely even exists -- and all their labor on it has been in vain.

Admittedly, for the scheme to work, my seal of approval will have to mean something. So before putting it on a game, I'll first send the game out to a team of experts who will test it, debug it, and recommend changes. But will I pay the experts for that service? Not at all: as the final cherry atop my chutzpah sundae, I'll tell the experts that it's their professional duty to evaluate, test, and debug my games for free!

On reflection, perhaps no game developer would be gullible enough to fall for my scheme. I need a community that has a higher tolerance for the ridiculous -- a community that, even after my operation is unmasked, will study it and hold meetings, but not "rush to judgment" by dissociating itself from me. But who on Earth could possibly be so paralyzed by indecision, so averse to change, so immune to common sense?

I've got it: academics!

So yeah. Fair use in blogs is just the tip of the iceberg - the most egregious issue is that *we* are the ones who write, check, and prepare the documents, and then we have to pay again just to read them (and even if we don't pay directly you can be damned sure the libraries pass the costs down to us in the form of tuition and such).