E-books and e-publishing - Samuel Vaknin (best historical fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
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Q: What is Free Online Scholarship and how can it be
reconciled with rights to intellectual property? Can the
current revenue models of publishers be replaced with viable
alternative revenue models - and, if yes, which are they? What
the risks of abuse of FOS? Is FOS an instance of a larger
“free content” movement (Napster, etc.)? If so, can Free
Online Content principles be applied to music, books, and
film. for instance?
A: Free online scholarship is scientific and scholarly
literature which is made available free of charge on the
internet. The FOS movement singles out this body of
literature not because it is useful (because other kinds of
literature are useful too), but because it has the relevant
peculiarity that its authors don’t expect to be paid. If
authors want to make money from their works, we don’t
criticize or pressure them. But when authors consent to do
without royalties, then there’s no reason not to make their
writings freely available on the internet. When the
literature is as useful as research articles are, then free
online access is a public good worth every effort to realize.
Once we understand that the scope of the FOS movement is
limited to works that authors consent to give away, or to
publish without payment, then we can understand why this
movement is completely compatible with intellectual property
rights. When authors write articles, they are the copyright
holders. A growing number of journals will use their peer
review process to vet and validate articles, and ultimately
publish them, without demanding that authors give up copyright
—and we hope to launch more journals with this enlightened
policy. If the authors of peer-reviewed articles holds the
copyright to them, then they have the right to decide whether
to make access free or restricted. If they choose to make it
free and open, that is their right, not an infringement of
their right. The FOS movement is about using copyright to
authorize free and open access, not about piracy that creates
free access without the consent of the copyright holder.
This movement has nothing interesting in common with the
movement created by Napster. The all-important difference is
that researchers give away their journal articles and
musicians don’t give away their music. We work entirely
within the consent of the copyright holder.
Q: The major missing element seems to be
perceived respectability. But there are others. No agreed upon
content or knowledge classification method has emerged. Some
web sites (such as Suite101) use the Dewey decimal system.
Others invented and implemented systems of their making.
Additionally, one click publishing technology (such as
Webseed’s or Blogger’s) came to be identified strictly with
non-scholarly material: personal reminiscences,
correspondence, articles, and news. Above all, no feasible
alternative revenue models seem to have emerged.
A: Regarding respectability: There is a growing number of
free online peer-reviewed journals, and growing number of
highly respected academics willing to serve on their editorial
boards. As measured by impact (citations) or informal
prestige, some online journals surpass many print journals.
It’s true that print journals still have greater impact and
prestige than online journals, but only if we average the two
classes. The factors that create respectability are medium-independent, and can easily belong to online journals. A
growing number of online journals are as respectable as any
print journal. BMJ (formerly called the British Medical
Journal) is eminently respectable. It offers 100% of its
print copy online free of charge. There are other examples in
every field.
My view is that the lack of an agreed upon classification
method is not a problem. That’s a long conversation. But
it’s not true that the need for such a classification method
is widely felt. Indexing and organization are desirable, but
there is free and priced software to index and organize any
online content in any way that users want. This software will
only get better as time goes on.
It’s not true that no feasible alternative revenue models have
emerged. FOS doesn’t depend on volunteer labor. The general
revenue model is to pay for outgoing articles (dissemination)
rather than incoming articles (access). There are many
variations on the theme, depending on who pays. But it’s
perfectly feasible to regard the costs of dissemination as
part of the cost of research, to be paid by the grant that
funds the research —for example. (This is just one variation
on the theme.) BioMed Central is a for-profit provider of
FOS implementing one variation on this theme.
In a general introduction to the FOS movement I’m writing for
another journal, I’m putting it this way. The economic
feasibility of FOS is no more mysterious than the economic
feasibility of Public TV. Donors pay the costs of
dissemination so that it will be free for everyone. For that
matter, it’s no more mysterious than the economics of
commercial TV, which is identical except that advertisers are
among the donors. There are many successful and sustainable
examples in our economy in which some people pay to make a
good free for everyone rather than pay only for their own
private access or consumption.
Q. Can you summarize for us the major developments and trends
in FOS?
A: Here are some trends in the FOS movement:
A growing number of disciplines have free online preprint
archives. Every discipline now has a growing number of free
online peer-reviewed journals. A growing number of
universities have free online archives for faculty research
papers. Journal publishers are experimenting with ways to
offer more of their content online, some of it free of
charge. They are also experimenting with different ways to
fund the costs of the online content. More journal publishers
are allowing authors to put their published papers online free
of charge e.g. on their own home pages. It is increasingly
common to see journal editors rebel against journal publishers
that refuse to lower subscription prices or widen online
access. They rebel by resigning and launching new journals on
the same topics and usually gather the same subscribers and a
superior “impact factor” very quickly. More scholars and
researchers are demanding that journals offer free online
access to their contents. The Public Library of Science open
letter has so far gathered more than 29,000 signatures from
175 countries. More online repositories of digital articles
are participating in the Open Archives Initiative, and more
scholars and task forces are endorsing it. It is the emerging
standard for making separate archives “interoperable” —for
example, searchable as if they were one. More serious,
feasible solutions are emerging to the problem of long-term
preservation of digital content. More journals and special
initiatives are seeking ways to provide developing countries
with free online access to scientific and scholarly
literature. More software tools exist to automate the
operation of online journals (hence, to keep costs low). Just
about all tasks can now be automated except editorial judgment
(which shouldn’t be, of course). More hiring and tenure
committees are giving weight to peer-reviewed publications
without regard to the medium of publication (print or
electronic). More journal publishers are seeking ways to
accommodate the scholarly demand for online access (though not
always to accommodate the demand for free online access). The
serials pricing crisis which has long alarmed and mobilized
librarians is starting to alarm and mobilize university
administrators and faculty. Copyright law is changing from a
balance between publishers and readers toward a severe
imbalance favoring publishers. (See next question below.)
The recent Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) is promising
for several reasons. It brings together FOS proponents from
many disciplines and nations, FOS initiatives from many
fronts, and foundations with serious resources to help advance
the cause. These foundations are led by George Soros’ Open
Society Institute, which convened the meeting that gave birth
to the BOAI.
One thing I like about the BOAI is its friendliness. It
doesn’t demand that journals or publishers join the cause or
face sanctions. It offers to help them make the transition if
they are willing to do so. But if they aren’t willing, it
simply says it will pursue the cause without their help. The
BOAI doesn’t demand any changes from publishers, markets, or
legislation, and doesn’t criticize anyone for not joining. It
articulates two strategies that scholars can pursue on their
own. One is self-archiving, by which scholars deposit their
papers in institutional or disciplinary archives. (These
archives are interoperable, or they cooperate with one
another, by virtue of their compliance with the standards of
the Open Archives Initiative.) The second is the launch of a
new generation of journals that are committed to making their
contents freely accessible online.
The long-term economic sustainability of free online
scholarship is not a problem. We know this because creating
open online access to this literature costs much less than
traditional forms of dissemination and much less than the
money currently spent on journal subscriptions. The only
problem is the transition from here to there. The BOAI is
especially promising because it understands this and mobilizes
the financial resources to help make the transition possible
for existing journals that would like to change their business
model, new journals that need to establish themselves, and
universities that don’t yet participate in self-archiving. In
this sense the BOAI is not just a statement of principles or
ideals, but a serious and effective plan to achieve this very
important public good.
Q. Copyright laws are being revamped the world over (but
mainly in the USA). What would be the impact of the likes of
the DMCA on scholarship and on the economics of publishing?
A. The DMCA has several harmful consequences for scholarship.
First, it prevents some scientists who happen to specialize in
encryption and data security from publishing their research.
Edward Felten of Princeton has so far been unable to get a
court to declare that he has a First Amendment right to
publish his research on certain methods of copy protection.
Taken at face value, the DMCA would punish Felten for
publishing his research. Until courts settle the question
whether the relevant sections of the DMCA are constitutional,
the free expression rights of scholars like Felten will be
chilled. And of course if the question is resolved in favor
of the DMCA, then the free expression rights of scholars like
Felten will be repealed. Second, it prevents some computer
scientists from publishing their research in the form of
source code, the technical language of their field. While
some courts have held that source code is protected as a kind
of speech, other courts are giving it a low level of
protection in order to give effect to DMCA prohibitions on
certain kinds of software. Third, it supports strong copy-protection schemes that deprive readers of their fair-use
rights. For the same reason, it deprives purchasers of
digital content of the right to bypass copy protection in
order to make personal back-up copies or to keep the content
readable when they move to a new computer. For the same
reason, it prevents libraries from taking necessary measures
to assure the long-term access and preservation of digital
literature. The DMCA is even worse for software developers and
consumers than it is for scholars. This week Felten dropped
his appeal. So currently no court is even considering his
question whether scholars have a First Amendment right to
publish their research, or whether the anti-circumvention
clause of the DMCA (which seems to prohibit Felten from
publishing) is unconstitutional.
Note that the FOS movement has no problem with the strong
protection of intellectual property, which is at the heart of
the DMCA. That’s not the problem. The problem is the way the
DMCA upsets a long-standing (and constitutionally mandated)
balance between publishers and readers and gives nearly
everything to publishers.
Because internet content crosses national boundaries, one
nation will often want to enforce the
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