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Quoth [log in to unmask]:
> LAST RITES FOR FIRST BITES
>
> > Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 13:40:33 +0100
> > From: [log in to unmask] (Chris Zielinski)
>
> I have written about the Faustian Bargain in the Gutenberg era, in
> which authors had to assign copyright to publishers in order to be
> published for posterity at all. In the PostGutenberg Age it is no
> longer necessary to make that Faustian Bargain, collaborating in
> blocking access to the report of one's research until the entry fee is
> collected. The ALCS programme seems to have the objective of drawing
> authors back into a Faustian Bargain even now that they have a choice.
Can you clarify?
I'm a mere trade author/journalist, though I have had brushes
with academic publishing.
My understanding on the practice of academic authors assigning their
rights is that it's a matter of relative economic clout: them that
owns the presses... a Faustian Bargain indeed, but one which we
Fausts make with Capital: the influence of the technology merely
being on the concentrations of capital required.
I'm deeply puzzled (from my one-and-a-quarter-sided perspective on
the alleged trade/scholarly divide) how ALCS can draw authors back
into said Faustian bargain. ALCS is owned and controlled by
authors. It collects payments for uses of work in which authors
retain ownership. As Chris says:
> > Having retained their rights, if authors are nevertheless happy to
> > give
> > their work away on the Internet, that's obviously up to them, and I
> > can have
> > no quarrel with that. We would however urge them to ensure that a
> > suitable
> > assertion of their rights appears on the site. ...
{valuable tutorial on "moral rights"...}
{big snip}
> These are indeed merely variants of the trade model; they are all
> predicated on the idea, never pertinent to the nontrade author, that,
> like trade authors, they are selling their wares (or someone else is
> selling them on their behalf), whereas they are in reality publicising
> their findings.
OK. As I understand it:
SH: Scholarly publishing is fundamentally different from trade
publishing.
CZ: Publishing of academic works is (from the point of view of
the publisher and its accountant) *no different* from trade
publishing *except* that, when you call it "scholarly
publishing", authors are more willing to assign their rights.
[Bitter, twisted cynical emphasis is mine]
SH: 'tis
CZ: 'tisn't
MH: Can we agree that humans expend effort in the expectation
of reward (which may be cash, prestige, love, the warm feeling
generated by a sense of having contributed to the welfare/knowledge
of humanity, or a sense of devilment, or theological stuff where
applicable)?
Good.
(1) I, as a journalist, expend effort on writing in the hope of
direct cash reward. Prestige is a consideration in that in
increases future cash rewards which pay the landlord. (Devilment
is also a factor, and tends to reduce the future cash reward,
but heck... and I put effort into *this* in the hope of
*securing* fair rewards, according to taste, for all.)
(2) Steven, as a researcher, expends effort on writing because:
> We are not paid to write. We are paid to conduct
> our research (particularly at "research-led" universities). Refereed
> journals are our means of REPORTING our research. If we don't report
> our research, we may as well not have done it; ditto if we report it and
> nobody reads it.
>
> Now, although the specific details of the incentive structure of
> refereed academic publishing vary from place to place, if one wishes to
> put it crassly, it goes like this: high-impact research is
> money-in-the-bank in learned inquiry.
>
> The British RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) is one of the most
> direct and single-minded implementations of this reward structure (and
> one that I wish only to note, not to praise, as it has plenty of
> flaws), because in the sciences entirely, and in all but the
> "monograph" disciplines likewise, RAE ratings are based directly on the
> importance of one's refereed papers -- not their number, but their
> importance, as measured, for example, by their ISI "impact" factors
> (citation ratio), and the impact factors of the journals in which they
> appear.
If I may summarise in the hope of discovering whether I have understood:
For academics, writing brings:
(1) contribution to humanity's knowledge;
(2) prestige;
(3) money
- indirectly through prestige, RAE assessment, citation counts, etc.
SH argues that it is therefore in academics' interest
(not *merely* financial - I'm no Thatcherite) to distribute their
writings as widely as possible, *and* to retain ownership of
(not least in order to maintain the authority to set the price
to the reader at zero).
So: how does the existence of a mechanism for collection of
fees on behalf of writers who retain their rights and set a
non-zero access price threaten this?
Mike Holderness
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike
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