FW: [h2o-discuss] Open Source Scientific Journals

[John Wilbanks <wilbanks@cyber.law.harvard.edu>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Eldred [mailto:eldred@mediaone.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 1999 12:09 PM
To: John Wilbanks
Subject: Re: [h2o-discuss] Open Source Scientific Journals


John Wilbanks wrote:
> 
> Eric,
> 
> Thanks for the long and thoughtful reply -- do you mind if I post this
> to h2o-discuss?

oh, i messed up the to: line i guess by just hitting reply
when i thought it went to the list without checking.
please do forward it, and please add your interesting
comments too if you like.

> 
> I went with a quick link to slashdot after a cursory reading of the
> comments on that site and a longer look at the nih site (my wife is a
> molecular biologist and I've been following the open journal concept
for
> a while now at her behest) -- yesterday was crazy for me, so I didn't
> take the time to write a long piece on the debate.  I was actually
> hoping for someone like you to grab the ball!
> 
> Anyhow, this is the point that struck me the most from your email:
> 
> <<<snip>>>
> what i do find interesting though about this topic is
> that slashdot readers seem to naively imagine that
> some sort of Open process is the answer to everything.
> instead, i am becoming convinced that each domain
> needs to have some special examination of its particular
> features, before blanket generalizations can be made.
> and that examination requires that all the members of
> the professional domain get together to look carefully
> at their institutions, their purposes, and the best
> technologies to implement them.  in fact, often there
> is no one obvious implementation good for all time,
> but rather a variety of choices, each with tradeoffs.
> (even if the physics community works well with one
> method, should biomedical researchers use the same one?)
> <<<>>>
> 
> This is a danger I fear for us at BCIS as well.  "Open" is such a
vague
> term as to encomp assanything we want it to encompass, and in many
cases
> we might hurt the causes we really care about with careless
applications
> of the term.  Dilution, ironically, seems to be the appropriate
term...
> 
> jtw
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Eldred [mailto:eldred@mediaone.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 7:52 PM
> To: John Wilbanks
> Subject: Re: [h2o-discuss] Open Source Scientific Journals
> 
> John Wilbanks wrote:
> >
> > Good article and debate on slashdot at
> >
> > <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/07/28/0219237&mode=thread>
> 
> sorry, this is a bit longer than i expected....
> 
> i doubt that slashdot is the best place to discuss this
> complicated proposal--rather the authoritative proposal,
> http://www.nih.gov/welcome/director/ebiomed/53ebio.htm
> points to a discussion area of its own.
> 
> but the slashdot presentation adds this comment:
> >I, like Varmus, believe that since most scientific research
> >is funded by the public, the public should have free
> >access to it from open E-libraries via the Internet,
> >and that the only person who should be allowed to claim
> >"ownership" of a scholarly article is the person who wrote it. ....
> >No Scientific Society or Journal Publisher should be allowed
> >to hold a copyright on scientific knowledge. The
> >researcher is the only one who has the right to
> >claim, "I discovered it and I reported it."
> 
> (this latter is a very romantic idea of authorship and
> one that Jamie Boyle has eloquently expanded on...)
> 
> however, in fact, the proposal states only this:
> %Copyright to reports posted in E-biomed would be
> %retained by the authors, with the provision that
> %intact versions would be freely available for transmission,
> %downloading, and publication. Portions of reports could
> %be reproduced only with the permission of the authors. ....
> %while we favor the idea that copyright would be
> %retained by authors, editorial boards could choose to
> %hold copyrights; this policy decision might then
> %influence the choice some authors make about the boards
> %to which their reports would be sent for review.
> .....and later...
> %Who will hold the copyright to articles that
> %appear within edited sites in E-biomed?
> %Although we favor the notion that authors will retain
> %copyright, this is a matter that could largely be
> %left to individual editorial boards to resolve. The advisory board
> %might, however, want to consider the possibility
> %that some "fair use" policy should be adhered to by
> %all journals participating in the system, even those that choose
> %to retain copyright.
> 
> now i wonder whether it is really copyright that is
> the intellectual property issue.  or is it trademark,
> and the issue of how to guarantee "free" access?
> 
> it is important to see that the E-BIOMED proposal
> does by no means attempt to replace totally the
> current medical research publishing institutions.
> it provides an invitation to the current journals
> to participate, but it is difficult to see why they
> would want to without any incentives.
> 
> for example, the editor of the New England Journal of
> Medicine was fired the other day.  no reasons were given
> publicly, but it is well known that he vigorously
> opposed the E-BIOMED proposal, along with another proposal
> by his own bosses in the medical society to establish
> a two-tier system that is quite similar.  his arguments
> were these:
> 
> 1.  NEJM is the top brand--it would dilute it to put that
> brand on journals constituted from the "left-overs"
> 2.  NEJM publishes for physicians--they need to get the
> information before their patients, they need to discuss
> issues professionally in an arena apart from the public,
> while the public should have the information interpreted
> for them by skilled, prepared medical journalists
> 
> (it's not clear to me that many of the advantages of
> the E-BIOMED proposal could not be met by the journals,
> if they set up their own web sites, funded by advertising,
> and with private subscription areas for medical society
> members and so on.  Certainly in neither case will ALL
> medical research be available for searching or fulltext
> browsing, since printed journals will continue, and
> nobody is suggesting entering all back issues in fulltext
> of all medical journals that will be referred to from
> future research.)
> 
> the E-BIOMED suffers from the major fault of not
> first analyzing what is broken with the current system,
> before attempting to replace it.
> 
> for example, much medical research is not funded by the
> public, but rather by drug companies.  and the funding
> comes with a contract that states the researcher will
> offer advance information to the company, and usually a
> requirement that publication will be in a top, peer-
> reviewed journal--sometimes the company will delay
> publication or even try to suppress it, if the results
> are not favorable.
> 
> should the drug company own copyright to the research,
> since it paid for it, just as the "public" pays for
> other research?
> 
> on the other hand, if the copyright does not come with
> a license that prohibits the article to be copied for
> some commercial use, then is it okay if the drug
> company copies the study to its own web pages, complete
> with advertising?  or what about if it just makes a
> link to the study on E-BIOMED?
> 
> i wonder if it is copyright and not some sort of
> branding issue, or how to craft a license for the
> copyright.
> 
> should it be a shrinkwrap license such as GNU's?
> what is the enforceability of such a shrinkwrap
> license, given the parallel wrangling over shrinkwrap
> licenses in UCITA or UCC21, when no money changes hands
> and the contract is not obviously agreed to?
> 
> so it seems to me that the issues of trademark (branding)
> and of "free" access are separate from that of copyright.
> i am not a lawyer but if i were to call them in to
> frame the documents in the case i would want to be sure
> to discuss many of these larger issues first.
> 
> in conclusion, i am not opposed to the E-BIOMED proposal.
> after all, i am on record as working toward a global,
> free library of information.  i just think it will take
> a lot more thought and discussion by the parties
> concerned.  since there is a lot of money involved, it
> will no doubt require some backroom negotiation too.
> in particular, incentives should not be overlooked.
> 
> what i do find interesting though about this topic is
> that slashdot readers seem to naively imagine that
> some sort of Open process is the answer to everything.
> instead, i am becoming convinced that each domain
> needs to have some special examination of its particular
> features, before blanket generalizations can be made.
> and that examination requires that all the members of
> the professional domain get together to look carefully
> at their institutions, their purposes, and the best
> technologies to implement them.  in fact, often there
> is no one obvious implementation good for all time,
> but rather a variety of choices, each with tradeoffs.
> (even if the physics community works well with one
> method, should biomedical researchers use the same one?)
> 
> but if you have read all this certainly you must have
> your own ideas now?....
> 
> --
> "Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
> mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
> "support online books!" http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/support.html

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
"support online books!" http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/support.html