the issue of "Licensing" has always been the "L" in
S/L/P [Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View] -- all three are
needless access/impact barriers, all are contrary to the interests of
research and researchers.
Not only are they contrary to the interets of research and researchers
they violate the essence of the public funds that were used to generate
both the researcher and the funded research which is the subject of the
eprint..
How can an instutition, private publisher, or other entity claim the
content which is "public domain" as a private asset when the funds used to
create the work that generated the report as well as the education used by
the reseachers were in fact generated from public funds.. all that they do
is in the public domain.
sterling
At 06:33 PM 11/06/2000 +0000, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>On Mon, 6 Nov 2000, Thomas Bacher, Director, Purdue Press, wrote:
>
>> This whole discussion misses the current trend of licensing that is
becoming
>> prevalent by information gatherers be they publishers, universities or
other
>> institutions.
>
>Not missing the trend at all. "Licensing" has always been the "L" in
>S/L/P [Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View] -- all three are
>needless access/impact barriers, all are contrary to the interests of
>research and researchers. Pick your poison.
>
>> With rights management systems, an organization can capture
>> information and price it for use with guards against re-use even if the
>> re-use constitutes fair use.
>
>We are not talking about "information" in general, but about a very
>small, special and anomalous subset of it: Refereed research papers.
>The researcher is not interested in "pricing it for use" or in "guards
>against re-use." The researcher is interested in maximizing his
>refereed research's visibility, accessibility and impact. S/L/P
>barriers are all impact-blockers.
>
>Since this refereed research is and always has been an
>author-give-way, "fair use" issues (such as those pertaining to
>non-give-away literature such as monographs and textbooks) are
>simply moot for this special literature:
>
>http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/2-Resolving-the-Anomaly/sld006.htm
>
>> Also, all people are not writers and all systems do not distribute in an
>> equitable way. Hence, we have entities called publishers.
>
>I could not follow this point. But, yes, even for this anomalous,
>give-away literature (the refereed research corpus), publishers do
>provide an essential service to authors, namely,
>Quality-Control/Certification [QC/C] (implementing peer review).
>However, as the peers give away their review services for free, just as
>the researchers give away their peer-reviewed research for free, the
>costs of this essential service are considerably lower than the costs
>of the inessential services (producing an on-paper and on-line text and
>deluxe add-ons) to which they are currently being held hostage.
>
>Those other products and services can be sold as add-on options as long
>as there is a market; but the refereed research itself must be freed
>(and can and will be, through author/institution self-archiving in
>interoperable Eprint Archives): http://www.eprints.org
>
>> I do think that publishers will come to terms with e-prints and limited
>> self-use by authors. However, there are factors that drive the current
>> system.
>
>I think so too. But unfortunately the points below are not signs of
>coming to terms but are instead a litany of familiar red herrings, with no
>causal connection to the revolutionary new possibility now within
>researchers' reach, of freeing their entire give-away literature
>through author/institution self-archiving:
>
>> Prestige. Researchers like to see their work published in the most
>> prestigious publication in their respective fields.
>
>Correct. That is what the essential QC/C service provides. But why
>should that prestige come at the price of impact-barriers? Let the true
>cost of the QC/C service (and a fair return) be paid for out of the
>S/L/P savings and the prestige remains intact. Until then, let authors
>self-archive their prestigious refereed papers. The outcome is the
>same.
>
>(There is, as usual, a causal quid-pro-quo link implied here that is in
>reality non-existent.)
>
>> Pay. Researchers do like to get paid for doing something, even if that pay
>> is in the form of reprints.
>
>Can this be meant seriously? As a compensation for allowing needless
>impact-barriers (S/L/P) to be erected between my give-away refereed
>research and its potential worldwide readership, I am supposed to
>accept a finite quantity of paper reprints, so I can stamp and mail
>them? When I can just as easily archive the eprint in an Eprint
>Archive, free for all?
>
>Are we to proceed, then, as if nothing whatsoever has changed, and
>changed radically, with the brand-new possibilities that the new
>PostGutenberg have opened up for research and researchers?
>
>This does not sound like coming to terms, but like
>status-quo-conservation at all costs -- to research and to common
>sense!
>
>> Power. Researchers like to reach points at which they are viewed as
>> authorities in particular fields and can determine the worth of
>> contributions to that field.
>
>Correct. And that is precisely what peer review (QC/C) provides. Now
>where is the causal link between that essential service and continuing
>to hold this peer-reviewed literature behind S/L/P firewalls as it is
>now?
>
>> Portability. You can say all that you might like to about electronic
>> distribution, but currently paper is still king. How often do you print
>> things to read?
>
>Hard to believe that the causal connection has not been made between an
>eprint archive and a printer, when one needs one...
>
>> Process. Tenure still hangs on certain factors that discourage information
>> distribution in certain ways.
>
>Tenure hangs on publishing refereed research. That is QC/C again. It
>does not hang on holding QC/C research hostage to S/L/P gate tolls.
>
>To put it another way: In the PostGutenberg Era in which
>author/institution self-archiving of refereed research has at last
>become possible, we now need to see through these pseudo-causal
>connections, which are no longer causal at all, and realize that QC/C
>implementation is the only ESSENTIAL causal role that journal
>publishing plays any more, in the online age (the rest is optional).
>All the above connections are superstitions, based on past correlations,
>from the Gutenberg Era, not on contemporary causality.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>Stevan Harnad [log in to unmask]
>Professor of Cognitive Science [log in to unmask]
>Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
> Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
>University of Southampton http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
>Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
>SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
>
>NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
>access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
>American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00):
>
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
>
>You may join the list at the site above.
>
>Discussion can be posted to:
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
Computer Aided Cell and Molecular Biology (CACMB), not medicine, will find
the cure for cancer and other diseases. There will always be a need for
the trained clinician (MD/RN) but, advanced diagnostic and treatment option
selection has become gene based, has moved from the physician's practice to
the computerized cell and molecular biology laboratory, and appropriate
treatment options should now be based on the personal biology of the
patient.
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