Re: "junior" authorship

Hilary Cantwell <hilary[_at_]deakin.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Person A does research, writes an article or thesis or book. Person
> B, usually more of an authority, might provide supervision and perhaps
> even funding - but might never put pen to paper.
>
> Then you see both Person A and Person B listed as authors on the
> published work - Person B usually taking second place - as "junior"
> author, as a credit for their involvement.
>
> It's interesting, because I've been involved in a situation where
> Person A decided he really hated Person B and refused to let Person B
> be acknowledged as "junior" author. Needless to say, there isn't a
> proper contract which sorts all this sort of thing out. And Person B
> didn't actually do any of the writing. So we've got the scientific
> community saying that this sort of thing goes on all the time, that
> it's standard practice - but it is a very dodgy practice,
> copyright-wise.
 

Authorship for the purposes of copyright is a strictly defined legal concept primarily concerned with who creates the expression of ideas. Authorship of science research papers is as much concerned with authorship of the ideas (in many ways more so) as with the expression of those ideas.

When I wear my legal academic hat, this conflict concerns me-is it misleading or deceptive or illegal under the various copyright laws to acknowledge someone as author if they don't contribute the expression? But when I wear my science academic hat, the question becomes, is it misleading or unconscionable for their name to be absent from the paper where they have contributed to the development of ideas expressed in the paper?

I resolved this multiple-role disorder by resorting to custom-it is the custom in the scientific community to acknowledge all contributors of ideas and/or words (and in the computer science field, often even of code) as co-authors. The level of contribution is usually measured by the order of appearance of the names. To do anything less is misleading to other scientists, claiming sole merit where that merit is not strictly due. The author list at the top of a paper is not a formal claim of copyright ownership or authorship as defined in the various copyright laws of different nations. In the case of a scientific paper, it is purely a statement of contribution. Unfortunately with the recently adopted practice of requiring assignment for publication, assumptions are being made that contributors are also owners for the purpose of copyright law.

-- 
| Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B., B.Sc. (Hons)
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