[h2o-discuss] free scholarship

[Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net>]

"James H. Johnston" wrote:
> 
>   -------------------------------------------------------------------
>      I read Eric Elred's comment that "it is an illusion to think
> that authors can make money from writing books" the same day that
> I asked someone, who should know, why professors don't "publish"
> online.  I argued that most professors surely don't make money
> from their books.  Why shouldn't they "publish" on the Internet
> and make their scholarship available to the world for free?
>      The response was that scholarship is intellectual property
> and that although professors may not be compensated well from
> sales of their books, they are compensated through their
> salaries.  Indeed, my respondent continued, the system of higher
> education is built on the intellectual property of the faculty.
> Neither the universities nor the faculty want to give it away for
> free over the Internet.
>      Does anyone have a reply?
> 
> Jim Johnston
> jimjohn@erols.com

at the May 20th conference somebody made a useful
comment:  we ought to please distinguish between 
copyright as a means of making money, and
copyright as a way of gaining credit in some other
way and preventing plagiarism.  Plagiarism is not
the same as copyright infringement, though it is
often confused.

i thought it would be useful to repeat that point
at this time in the discussion.  Also, we ought
to distinguish again between the interests of the
scholars and professors on the one hand, and the
universities and university presses on the other.
It seems that it is the latter's attempt to
"run things as a business" that create these
problems, not any problems of the professors.

And the issue cuts across our common disciplines:
does a professional programmer have the right to
reuse her coding of a particular algorithm in
another program after she has left the employ
of the first company--does a professor have the
right to the intellectual property of a course
he has taught; can he then teach the same course
at a different university--and if so, would he
be accused of copyright violation if he taught
the same course as one the university had 
put onto videotape and copyrighted and sold under
its name rather than the professor's?

Although examples of artists infringing on their
own copyright or plagiarising their own work
are hard to imagine, I will refer you to an
interesting New York Times Sunday Magazine article
a few weeks ago about an art forgery case.  In
the middle of the article is presented some news
about artists who falsely dated their paintings
or signed documents of authenticity, just in order
to make more money for them or their heirs.

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
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