Slashdot Mirror
E-Reserves Under Fire From Publishers
RackinFrackin writes "Publishers Weekly has a story about a copyright lawsuit lodged against several faculty members and a librarian at Georgia State University. The case, Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Patton et al., involves e-reserves, a practice of making electronic copies of articles available to students. From the article: 'Rather than make multiple physical copies, faculty now scan or download chapters or articles, create a single copy, and place that copy on a server where students can access it (and in some cases print, download, or share). Since the practice relies on fair use (creating a single digital copy, usually from a resource already paid for, for educational purposes), permission generally isn't sought, and thus permission fees aren't paid, making the price right for students strapped by the high cost of tuition and textbooks, as well as for libraries with budgets stretched thinner every year.'"
Sarcastically speaking, I feel so sorry for the publishers losing out. They charge such unnecessarily exhorbitant prices and change maybe a word or two or chapter organization resulting in a new edition to obsolete the old. Maybe it is high time professors fought back against this extortion.
Does an educational publishing house exist to disseminate information to the people who will use it to improve our society? Or does it merely gobble up the maximum amount of money without regard to the impact on society?
Well, I guess now we know.
The professors write the book ,send it to a publisher for editing and what not, and the book is sold back to the SAME SCHOOL, and others. Thats how it works right now. As far as Im concerned, these professors should forward their books to the lit department, have some undergrads edit, and pretty it up. then post it on the schools server. Then schools could share their librarys with other schools, so every school will have available on its server every fucking book they need. Problem solved.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Screw Cambridge University Press. I just lost my assitantship(read: tuition waiver) because we don't have enough funding in my department. If we had to pay even to read every single copy of an article, most of the graduate departments would be gone. In any case, how is this any different from making copies out of a physical book in a library? If they are going to go after us, they should be going after every single library that holds their books and also owns a copier, since apparently that is costing them fees as well. Where they say "Rather than make multiple physical copies, faculty now scan or download chapters or articles", they really mean "Rather than BUY multiple physical copies, faculty now scan or download chapters or articles". Oh, yeah, and remind me never to publish with Cambridge University Press.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Open source all course materials and stop fucking around with for-profit publishers.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Publishers know one thing: don't fuck with tenured professors. These guys have contributed a lot of material (both as articles and as books) to the publishers, from which they gain usually very little to nothing. But the profs have the attitude that they'll send a copy of the article to any scholar that asks for it. Some even have automated e-mail systems which send the article in an automated e-mail. And publishers always let them do that, because they know what is the true source of their bread and butter, and know better than piss them off. Ask any tenured prof if they are worried that the publishing hose will come after them for distributing copies of their articles; their attitude is "Bring it on, make my day."
Senior scientists HATE giving up copyrights to the text and every picture they publish in the article, to the journal, without getting anything in return - not to mention that they are the authors of the whole article, and must even carefully format it according to the capricious guidelines of the journal! Oh yeah, and the peer-review is done by other unpaid scientists. People are furious and anger is boiling. Does this publishing house really want to stir this nest of angry wasps? The UC boycott of NPG didn't come out from a vacuum. Cambridge University Press could find itself on the receiving end of something similarly unpleasant. Yes, they are very prestigious and with a long tradition - but so does Nature Publishing Group.
If the situation blows up to a sufficient degree, we might see a revolutionary change towards copylefted, openly accessible scientific papers and notebooks. Public Library of Science is moving in that direction, and I can only hope that the movement/trend picks up momentum and steamrolls the greedy publishing houses and journals.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.