Slashdot Mirror
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."
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).
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.
For better or for worse, the "public option" probably deserves most of the credit for developing nuclear energy, the Internet, and space travel. Radio broadcasting as we know it was also large developed by the "public option," specifically university radio stations in the 1920s, a fact that was forgotten when radio became commercializable and commercial radio pretty well eclipsed the pioneers.
I don't think anyone can say what would have happened if the government had not chosen to fund these developments. The fact is, in the particular parallel universe we live in, they were developed publicly.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Pretty much the entirety of basic modern physics and modern cryptography. Companies are happy to turn government science into products they can profit from, they are not happy to fund basic research. Yet basic research is what those products come from in a longer perspective. Companies only do the last step of research because it is only at the last step that it becomes clear what the profitable outcome is going to be.
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.
I know, I should avoid answering obvious trolls especially ones who see the world only in terms of a philosophy that, much like communism, doesn't ever work in practice.
(2) is worse than (1) because not all science can produce a profit. Even if it can, it might not be an immediate enough profit. For example, how long did it take for the photoelectric effect to have a profitable application? How about quantum mechanics? General relativity? Heliocentrism? Modeling of stellar interiors? Sequencing genomes of lichen?
If (2) worked the way you think it would, (1) never would have been developed because the rich wouldn't have allowed government to get in the way of their revenue generation.
Support SETI@home
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/
Something close to that used to be the case. Not copyright per se because there was no such thing as printing and every Bible was transcribed by hand, but for about the first millennium and a half of the Church's existence most Bibles were written in Latin, which only the clergy could read. So to most people possessing a copy of the Bible would have been pointless; it was locked down, in effect, by a primitive DRM. A major point of the Protestant Reformation was the demand for Bibles written in the local languages so that people could actually read what God (supposedly) had said himself, rather than just taking the local priest's word for it.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
...To prevent the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for unlimited Times to the employers of Authors and Inventors and Trolls the exclusive Right to all Writings and Discoveries.
There; FTFY. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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
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.