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Copyright Law Is Killing Science
HansonMB writes "Whereas copyright tends to focus on protecting artists' ability to make money from their work, scientists don't use similar incentives. And yet, her work is often kept within the gates of the ivory tower, reserved for those whose universities or institutions have purchased access, often at high costs. And for science in the age of the internet, which wants ideas to spread as widely as possible to encourage more creativity and development, this isn't just bad: it's immoral."
...To prevent the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for unlimited Times to Authors and Inventors and Trolls the exclusive Right to all Writings and Discoveries.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Government work should be public domain and PHD thesis I think are required to be. But the busness end of Academia is going whole hog into getting not only copyright but patents locked down. In my teaching they were trying to copyright all instructional material and video presentations with no benefit for the instructors. Certainly not only should schools add to the public domain but patents and copyrights should belong to the creators of that intellectual property.
Look: copyright has nothing to do with it. If you don't want the publication locked up, don't publish in journals that make you give up all your rights or negotiate a different deal. The fact is, on this point, copyright isn't necessary because the terms of the contract would just take over. If the publisher didn't want you to publish outside its pay wall it could ask you via your contract regardless of the copyright in the work.
This reflects more on the economic and business incentives of scientific journals than on copyright. The journals don't care about the copyright so much as they value the exclusivity and the first publication rights. Copyright is just a placeholder for a very simple non-publication clause and associated penalties (or liquidated damages).
Moral science isn't about publishing (peer-reviewed) papers for all to see. Moral science is about understanding the world For the Betterment of Mankind. That requires follow-through, and follow-through requires large amounts of money to turn a publication into a product*. The only way to attract that kind of money is either 1) get the Guv'mint decree that it be directed toward your pet project, or 2) entice Big Bigness and the Richest One Percent to fund it by promising them a cut of the revenue in a legally binding contract, enforceable in the legal framework set up by the same Guv'mint. Tell me why (2) is worse than (1), and show me an example of where the Public Option has succeeded on the same scale as the private option?
Here's an article he got published in Nature back in 2001
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/stallman.html
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Under natural law, you typically only own that which is limited, in such a way you can control its use exclusively. But what about ideas? They aren't limited resources, anyone can create their own instance of an idea, an invention, a writing... http://mises.org/daily/5108/Ideas-Free-and-Unfree-A-Book-Commentary
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I'm interested in this. Not interested enough to watch a 50 minute segment on it. Is there a transcript somewhere?
If this is about open vs closed access journals
1. The situation is rapidly improving. While it's not where it needs to be, in the last few years we've seen a lot more journals providing open access.
2. The practice has been going on quite a while and we have yet to see science die. I don't think it can possibly be "killing" science. Limiting its potential, sure, but there's no way pay-for-access is having nearly as much effect as cutting funding for basic research.
Hardly. This practice is a minor parasite riding on the back of Science, it's been there for at least 100yrs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Actually, Cornell run arxiv.org which for my area of research provides brilliant access. It's free to access, no signing up even required, and has made it much easier to keep up to date with recent developments. It does give an interesting viewpoint, for me though. Most scientists (in academia, not corporate researchers) I know have, for years now, been freely giving access to their research away once they realised what they could do with the internet.
A scientist does not publish papers so they could be read. He publishes so he can put the citation on his CV for the purpose of improving his employment. Most of those "peer-reviewed" journals are not read by anybody; their value lies not in availability, but in prestige.
There's not a movie or album I can't find online for free or stream at my convenience for no fee. The only way copyright really affects people any more are people who seek to remix works and republish them. Wikileaks is another fine example. Information may not "want" to be free, but people want to share it. If anyone's really concerned about a certain piece of research's squelching affecting world prosperity, then go leak it there instead of crying about some need for law-change and encourage others to do likewise. The law will catch up eventually.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Businesses don't bother with anything that doesn't have big, short term profit. They let the Guv'mint (sic) pay for it :(. Right now there's work being done on a Leukemia vaccine... in Europe. No company in the states would pay a dime for the research, because it'd be a one time vaccine that only benefits a few million people (many too poor to pay $$$ for medicine).
Also, most of the major advances in basic science are done on the public dime, and then companies swoop in to monetize it. Look up the history of the Rail Roads in the US. Fact is, you can't build the giant cartel we know & love today w/o the Gov'mint (sic, again).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Long live the Science!
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
The whole idea of the GPL is that distributors are required to pass freedoms on to recipients.
Do you have any suggestions for how to do this without placing requirements on distributors???
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
In most (all?) jurisdictions, it's contract, not copyright, that says what the producer does with the work. You can pretend you own the work all you want, but if the contract you signed with the publisher, university, company, whatever, says you don't, then you don't.
If we really want to make a difference, reverse that relationship: make copyright trump contract and you're cooking with gas.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
What if all religious texts were under strict copyright since their inception? What if the churches restricted publication to its clergy? Would the world be worse off?
I'm about 10 minutes in, and bored out of my skull, as it doesn't seem that we are going anywhere..... right now, Lessign is reviewing copyright law back to the 1700s in teh house of lords.....
what I have learned is that he is a typical Harvard Preparation H: he constantly mentions his fellow H profs as , at a minimum as able to walk on water...
As an example:
Extract from the University Of Manchester IP Ltd Website http://www.umip.com/university_policy.htm:
The University of Manchester, through the provisions of the Patents Act 1977 and the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, owns the intellectual property rights (IPR) in patentable inventions, computer software, designs and other copyrightable material arising from the research activities of its staff.
The nett income from exploitation is shared with staff and their departments and in accordance with a reward scheme approved by the University's Board of Governors.
I am third year physics student in the UK, hoping to go on to do PHD work in one of the nuclear energy fields, most likely fusion research. The big thing that has worried me for a while is the possibility that I can make a discovery only to have the University I work for pounce on it with patents and copyrighting that prevent the unhindered use of that discovery to improve the world.
I'm not for a moment bigheaded enough to think I would make such a discovery personally, but the concept is a frightening one; the idea that a technology that could revolutionize some part of our world never seeing the light of day, because an academic institution is more interested in profiteering than in actually furthering the cause of science.
As a previous poster (RightwingNutJob) said "Moral science isn't about publishing (peer-reviewed) papers for all to see. Moral science is about understanding the world For the Betterment of Mankind."
Problem is investing in development of real world things from this research is costly, and not always successful. If before even starting on the research a company has to pay through the nose to license the idea, that makes said company less likely to bother in the first place surely?
Open Source University Anyone?
Refereed online publications not associated with a publishing house are the answer. Or at least they would be the answer if people used them. Unrefereed sites like arxiv.org have too many bad papers. The refereed publications there are fine, but some journals demand the authors give up electronic publication rights.
All of my papers, except the last two are available there. The last two are in copyright limbo for a while.
Support SETI@home
Sounds like the error the music publishers made in the early days of digital music. Look how Apple and iTunes changed that with reasonable fees. The fees charged for scientific articles are ridiculous. The big publishing houses reap tremendous profit for what? The authors submit electronic copies with publication-ready figures and all the information required to generate a BibTeX citation. Referees are volunteers. Print editions are fast becoming dinosaurs... PDFs are much easier to file... Here's a novel solution: give away the PDFs and get revenue via advertising: Put ads for equipment/reagents/services on the download page.
It's also stupid and pointless. Thoughtlessness is much more harmful to society than immorality ever could be.
Science does not 'want' anything
love is just extroverted narcissism
The only people who copyright and patents are really issues for, are those who want to utilize the IP of someone else (who went through the time and effort of conceiving, beta-testing, and proving a concept) without bothering with licensing the right to use it....and without any intention of compensating it's originators. I can't stand these bitchy leaches who can't be bothered with thinking for themselves and would rather just steal the fruit of your efforts and tell you to screw yourself when you ask them to pay for it.
As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it is these fucking leeches that inhibit science more than anything. I mean really, why go through the investment of time, effort, and even money to create original IP if some asshole is just going to walk up and snatch your ability to make money off of it for yourself?
The only problem I have with copyright and/or patents is these fucking companies that patent and copyright their works then shelve them, and hold the patent and/or copyright just to keep other people from being able to utilize them. LICENSE THAT SHIT, AND SELL THE RIGHTS TO PRODUCE IT TO OTHERS!!!
-Oz
It's a good thing. Yeah the internet* is a means to easily and cheaply to move data. That doesn't make it a moral ground, just a technical won.
Based on what I have seen int he last 10 years, there is real benefit for research to spend int's initial life held wityhing acadamia and the proper science community.
How many people have died because the general public didn't have the ability to understand the Wakefield paper?
How many times has the media cause alarm and panic over a paper they don't understand?
The media,. over and over again, grabs on to some detail of a paper and runs with it ?
How many people read the conclusion of a paper, but don't realize it's a bad or wrong conclusion**?
How many people don't even understand probability?
How many people just look at the paper and don't have the ability to apply against the larger research***?
I used to think it all should be out there, but I have watch the general populace and media twist it out of proportion and to very harmful result.
We need a vetting person for studies.
*The internet wants nothing. It has no desires and it hates it when you anthropomorphize it.
** This happens often, especially on new studies.
*** This is also a key reason Bayesian result are needed in studies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Your ADHD is not Lessig's fault.
Just so you know.
--
BMO
You can't copyright facts, so if a scientific paper is copyrightable...I have no reason to read it.
What?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Check out http://www.plosone.com/ New model for publishing where the publication is paid for by the grant and offered free and unencumbered to the public.
So, if you allow intellectual feudalism, a feudal system that allows access to resources by a hierarchy of powerful, privileged few ?
why, that would be something new, if it did not happen in middle ages already.
Read radical news here
You seem to forget another reason to pay someone less: because you can. For example, let's say you are working for a company and your research does something quite useful. Said company patents and copyrights that useful research as much as they can, and if a rival company wants to hire you, you have less utility to them because the first company has locked the second company out of your most direct expertise. Ignoring other factors for the time being, with copyright/patents, If the second company does hire you, they would have to pay you less because you are less useful to them. Because the second company will pay you less, the first company does not have to pay you as much to keep you from leaving.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's an academic presentation. Background must be given to those not familiar with the material. Arguments need to be supported.
Again, your ADHD is not Lessig's problem. It's yours.
If you get to the second half, he gets into remix culture, which is interesting. But you missed out on it, because you can't sit still for more than 10 minutes and pay attention.
--
BMO
A better approach is to put language in the funding contract stating that the money can only be used to produce research into the public domain. Funding is upstream, and such language trumps labs from giving away rights they don't have. If the researchers don't like it, they can find funding elsewhere. Eventually, the publications would have to adapt, as they'd find fewer and fewer big names publish.
From the funder's (AKA taxpayer's) perspective, this is a perfectly reasonable approach and outcome. Naturally, the payer should have free access to the thing for which they paid.
Copyright Law Is Killing Science
Christians are Killing Science
Funding Cuts are Killing Science
Patents are Killing Science
Junk Science is Killing Science
Conservatives are Killing Science
Publishing is Killing Science
Public Education is Killing Science
Corporations are Killing Science
Capitalism is Killing Science
Immigration is Killing Science
Feminism is Killing Science (!)
Political Correctness is Killing Science
Networks are Killing Science
Too Many Scientists are Killing Science
Too Few Scientists are Killing Science
SCIENCE IS DEAD
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Most of the publisher agreements I've been asked to sign (granted, in philosophy, not in science; I vaguely recall that the same was basically true in mathematics when I was publishing more regularly there) allow researchers to put a preprint up on their own website. Then the paper is available to anybody who wants it just by Googling for the title.
Most standards are written by volunteers who (or whose companies) even pay for their travel to meetings. All standards are copyright, and except for a few SDOs such as the IETF, most have to be purchased. SDOs, including professional societies, use sales of standards to support their central staffs. For IEC standards, even the volunteers who prepare them are expected to buy the final copies (the draft standards are marked as being only for the purpose of preparing comments). A single user set of the first five Smart Grid standards referred for action by FERC under the law creating the Smart Grid, all IEC standards, costs about $10K. That does not include the numerous normative references cited in the standards that also have to be purchased to fully understand the details. This creates a barrier to potential users even finding out what is in the standards to determine if they are worth using.
It doesn't matter whether it is science or industry. Quality and costs suffer due to patents. For example if you produce a small electronic product you have to avoid using any portion of anything that can be considered patented. So you select inferior ways of accomplishing the same task to avoid infringement. Even if it is primarily cost control rather than fear of infringement you are altering the best design to avoid the patent issues. The end user gets stuck with a lesser product that costs a lot more money even though no patented items are within the new product. Imagine the quality if patents and lawyers did not tie up production. I wonder how many patents have to be avoided in building a new car design. I'll bet it is exhaustive and arranging to pay fees when you want to encroach must cost a fortune as well.
Whereas copyright tends to focus on protecting artists' ability to make money from their work
Nope. Stop right there. It may be said that it is supposed to do as such, but today we see copyright being used by PUBLISHERS to control the artists and restrict users. Copyright as it is today is immoral, and no one has an obligation to recognize it as legitimate. We're all free to disregard it as much as we can reasonably get away with without personal harm from the enforcers in government who slavishly back the copyright cartels at the expense of our freedom and culture.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Tell me why (2) is worse than (1)
It isn't, but neither is (1) worse than (2): you need both in balance. Governments are need to fund the "not yet even close to being profitable" fundamental research and private sector is needed, to convert those fundamental discoveries into profitable products.
Government is essential for the first step because you cannot tell which avenues of fundamental research will yield the most useful results. For example nobody at the turn of the last century could have predicted that quantum mechanics would lead to the modern computer 60+ years later. No private company would ever fund such research because there is considerable risk and any reward, while potentially huge, is decades in the future.
Private companies are excellent at capitalizing on the seond step. They avoid the government bureaucracy, can move fast and create useful products and provide jobs. However they need a continuous stream of new, fundamental research to apply and adapt. The problem in recent times is that governments seem to have forgotten their role and are trying to mimic private companies because they see it as a way to make money and lessen the cost of their part of the research bill and, if they keep doing this, they risk breaking the machine which has let the west lead the world in science and innovation for the past several centuries.
Academic scientists have to publish in peer reviewed journals. Ok, fine, but why would those journals need to be copywrited and locked up? The academics have all the leverage here because they are the content producers here.
They can fix this whenever they're ready to.
"Sensationalist Headlines are Killing Slashdot"
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation
"So, when you think about the financial aspects of your innovation, please consider that fundamental things may change with cheap energy. Please consider how the scarcity-based economic model we all grew up with still govern so much about how innovations such as cold fusion are created, discussed, and distributed. Please consider that a scarcity-based economic model, and all the thinking and fiat-dollar-based financial conflict that relates to it, may be made obsolete very quickly by the rapid spread of a cold fusion [or other] innovation. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Let me know when there's a transcript. I can read at at least 4 times the speed he can speak.
Oh, give me mod points. Thanks, it's annoying and boring to read anti-GPL shills with their "but but but Stallman wants to steal my freedom to rip off other people!" crap.
My blog
Think about it. Should Newton have had to pay Galileo, or is it just cool that we now understand that the same gravity which pulls apples to the ground is what holds stars together?
Or, for that matter, should Einstein have had to pay Newton, or is it just cool that we now understand that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa? What about Schrodinger -- should he have to license Einstein (or the other way around; I'm a bit fuzzy on the history), or is it just cool that we now understand that particles are waves, and things we thought of as only waves are also particles?
If everyone had to "license that shit", you wouldn't be posting this, because you wouldn't have such a thing as a computer. If it wasn't for this licensing bullshit, we'd be living even more in the future than we are now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
What a ridiculous request.
Go do your own damn googling. I'm done replying to this stupid thread. Y'all are Idiocracy personified.
"You're shit's all fucked up and you talk like a faggot" indeed.
--
BMO
Why is this a troll?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Hey remember when Galileo was persecuted on his ideas of Science (heliocentric) and during that time Ptolemaic/Aristotelian scientists where at the top of their game? And back then ancient Greek philosophy/science was treated as correct, fact, and not questioned. Of course, also in Galileo's time, science was heavily integrated into business, politics and religion... hmmm. sounds familiar?
Well folks, we are in that same pattern currently. I'm just waiting for that Galileo-type scientist to appear to change the paradigm once again for the better of the human race. Unfortunately with the way information moves today, it's going to be someone we don't expect (some that does stuff in an unorthodox way) and faced with much harder resistance than 1600. We are at that time in history again my friends--and it is actually good.
To reference a work you need to be aware of it first. Papers in top journals are the best ads.
But I think these journals will lose their power once you have a system where an a good paper uploaded to a general archive can build prominence by being mentioned in the feeds of people with an increasing number of followers. Sort of like an academic form of crowd-sourced newpapers like Flipboard.
Are you really that fucking stupid??? *Every* university requires that their graduate students and professors sign away all their intellectual work while at the university.
At the University of California researchers, both faculty and students, are required to inform a technology transfer office of any discovery that is potentially patentable. This agency handles all the paperwork and other legal issues, and it also handles licensing the patent to interested commercial organizations. The fees collected for the licensing gets split:
*** 25% for the researcher ***
25% for the researcher's department
50% for the UC system
Also the fees take into account the nature of the licensing organization. Small local startups are changed less than large out-of-state conglomerates.
At least that's what I recall from the presentation I attended in 2007.
I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
I agree with the original topic. The fact that current science research from publicly-funded universities is locked up in pay journals, in the age of the Internet, is batshit crazy. It may be one of the top-10 insanities of our age.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
*Ahem*
LEAVE SCIENCE ALONE!
How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of SCIENCE after all IT has been through.!
IT lost her aunt, IT went through a divorce. IT had two fuckin kids.
ITs husband turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now IT’s going through a custody battle. All you people care about is.. readers and making money off of IT.
*end scene*
I look at the practices of the IEEE and the ACM. If you are not a member, go suck a lemon.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Hello,
I can say from my personal experience that these paywalls on journal articles are hindering my ability to accomplish research. My institution doesn't normally subscribe to medical journals, yet it looks like the best source for some information I want is in those journals.
However, I can NOT tell for certain from abstracts that the articles actually contain ANYTHING of use to me.
It comes down to a case of playing 'bobbing for apples, for $40/shot'.
This is a sorry state of affairs.
--PM
Whereas copyright tends to focus on protecting middlemen's ability to make money from the artists' work...
No, Really?????!!!
I would go further and say the scientific community today, is fraudulent and is leading us to the brink of disaster.
So much control, power and money are tied up in research programs and politics that it is basically impossible to do any good science any more.
I think I realized how bad it was with the advent of Cold Fusion or the discovery of low energy fusion physics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion
What they did to Fleischmann–Pons was not required. It went way way WAY beyond a simple disagreement about how to conduct and measure the phenomena.
The entire, NSA, National Science Foundation, White House, MIT researchers at the time _needed_ to have these men UTTERLY destroyed.
Why?
I became very suspicious about the whole thing because if this really was science, people would not be reacting this way. The theory would have been dis-proven, and life would just go on. Something indeed was discovered and it represented a threat.
A threat to the very standard model of physics, oil companies, research into fusion energy, military and political ties into the energy industry that even today, direct and make policy through the representatives these interests pick for us to vote for.
This was far from a mere experiment that needed not to be further looked at.
It was required to destroy the idea, the men, the research AND if anyone mentioned it again, they would be labled. This is Dogma, and it cannot be challenged.
Now, the observational principles of low energy fusion reactions due to technology is easy to reproduce. So many people now have designs for this energy source it is a matter of time before people are making their own energy units for house, community or cities.
Oil, Government, JP Morgan, M.I.T, NSF can't destroy us all who are involved in this research.
Oil and Nuclear Fission was quaint and it is no longer required. Along with the people and the oligarchies it supports, will be destroyed.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I was talking today with a guy who's site has been around providing legit original content for over 13 years and is HEAVILY plagiarized by other sites that end up ranking higher than him on Google searches and basically stealing ad revenue that should belong to his company. I'm not talking, scraped some sites and compiled a blog post, I'm talking legit, researched, HONcode certified material.
It would be cool if there were a way to reference your copyright ownership of content in an HTML header/sitemap so that Google could legitimately know the original source of the content.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson