Re: Who Should Own Scientific Papers?

On 15 Sep 1998, Daniel J. Schaeffer <daniel_schaeffer[_at_]kirkland.com> wrote:
>
> My question is whether SCIENCE's ownership of the copyright in Scientist
> X's paper would prevent Scientist X from creating a derivative work of
> that paper -- whether it be a follow-up study or something else. If
> Scientist X writes a second paper that builds on the first, does he
> need SCIENCE's permission to publish it?

The conventions in most areas of scientific research encourage citation rather than quotation. All research papers begin with a background that sets the stage for the researcher's hypothesis. Review articles, which present little or no new scientific findings, also depend on cites rather than quotes most of the time. Many readers actually browse the references first to establish relevance. I am not aware of differential formulas being cleared although some charts may need permissions.

In other areas, literary criticism for example, quotation is preferred and must be cleared. Many presses have a policy that defines fair use in terms of number of words for use of material subject to their permissions. Thus permission to quote N words from a monograph published by Y university press may need no separate clearance.

> As for how a boycott would work, I would imagine it would consist of
> scientists not submitting their papers for publication until SCIENCE
> changed its policy. Obviously, the more widely-sought such publication
> is the harder it would be for any such boycott to be effective. Note
> that I am not advocating or even suggesting such a boycott -- Dammit,
> Jim, I'm a lawyer, not a scientist! -- but merely asking whether
> anyone has considered it.

University administrators declared a crypto-war on publishers some time ago. The idea of boycotting journals -- not SCIENCE so far as I know -- has been promoted by administrators who want to reallocate library spending to other projects. There are any number of examples ranging from the wholesale cancellation of subscriptions by Princeton and LSU to proposals by Association of Research Libraries in 1987 (also an Ann Okerson project) and the current topic. While they attacked association publishers for their member discounts in the 1970s, they have now tried to make associations their allies against commercial publishers.

Universities have encouraged academic research -- which produces journal articles -- but frustrated dissemination. As a result, there are problems with the quality of research as I point out in SOCIETY (Sep Oct 1998).

Universities' efforts to reduce library spending comes from a need to promote administrative growth. Crawford and Gorman dubbed this the "enemies of the library" in their book FUTURE LIBRARIES (American Library Association) 1995.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Sep 15 1998 - 22:40:06 GMT