Poisonous Science: the Dark Side of Academic Copyright in the Digital Age

Copyright on academic and scientific publications (papers, articles, essays, books etc.) is the result of the interaction between formal rules (copyright law), social norms (norms of science) and technology (printing press, digital technologies). Prior to the digital age, academic copyright has had two main functions. a) Priority. The acknowledgment of a paternity (or attribution) right on the scientific publication has facilitated the certification of priority of the scientific discovery described in the text. b) Dissemination. The protection of economic rights (reproduction, distribution etc.) has enabled the alliance between scientific authors and publishers finalized to distribute scientific publications to the public. Usually, scientific authors transfer their economic rights to the publisher because the latter has the economic and technological power to disseminate scientific publications. Nevertheless, scientific authors are mostly interested in reputation and not in the economic return derived from the commercialization of copyright. According to Robert Merton's theory, the norms of science are Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized Skepticism (CUDOS). Scientists compete for priority but they put their ideas and information in the public domain. The ultimate scope is to share ideas and information because the progress of science depends on "communism" and "organized skepticism". In other terms, scientific publications are part of the public and critical dialogue. In this perspective, formal law and social norms, normally stating that the original ownership of copyright belongs to the authors and not to their academic or scientific institutions, mirror freedom of speech and academic liberty. The current scenario however seems completely different. In theory, Internet represents an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen the scientific debate. But reality tells a very different story. In the digital age, scientific publications are only "products". The changing nature of scientific publications is the effect of the commodification of academic research. While the interaction between commodification of academic research and university patents has been deeply investigated and discussed, scholars have paid relatively little attention to the commodification of academic copyright. In the market of scientific publications, bibliometrics and digitization distort the two functions (priority and dissemination) of academic copyright. On the one hand, the right of paternity becomes only part of academic metrics, aimed to generate long lists of publications in academic cv and citations in commercial databases like Scopus, ISI WoS, and Google Scholar. Not surprisingly, according to some studies, the logics of "publish or perish" and "impact or perish" foster scientific misconduct (e.g., falsification, fabrication, plagiarism). On the other hand, economic rights (reproduction, distribution etc.) become the leverage of the oligopolistic power of commercial and proprietary databases which concentrate publishing and evaluation - related to metrics - powers. For example, Elsevier is at the same time the biggest scientific publisher and the "largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature". This market power is the result of the interplay between copyright and the contemporary processes of academic evaluation connected to the notion of "metrics". In this perspective, the real goal of economic copyright is not to disseminate, but to concentrate the control of scientific information in few hands. The Open Access and Open Science movements are trying to oppose the distortion of academic copyright and indeed re-establish its original twofold function (priority and dissemination). Nevertheless, it is worth emphasising that, without a deep and radical change in the process of academic evaluation and in the copyright law, the progress of science and academic freedom will be at great risk. References Biagioli M. et al., Gaming Metrics: Innovation & Surveillance in Academic Misconduct, Conference at UC Davis, February 4-5, 2016, https://video.ucdavis.edu/media/Gaming+Metrics+-+Mario-Biagioli+%2802-04-2016%29/0_0wcg4w9l Biagioli M., Recycling Texts or Stealing Time?: Plagiarism, Authorship, and Credit in Science (2012). International Journal of Cultural Property, 19: 453-476, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2427955 Guédon J.C., Open Access: Toward the Internet of the Mind, Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2017, http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/open-access-toward-the-internet-of-the-mind Guédon J.C., In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing, Association of Research Libraries, Washinghton D.C., 2001, ISBN 0-918006-81-3, http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/in-oldenburgs-long-shadow.pdf Merton R. K., The Matthew Effect in Science, II: Cumulative Advantage and the Symbolism of Intellectual Property, Isis, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), 606 Merton R. K., The Matthew Effect in Science, Science, New Series, Vol. 159, No. 3810. (Jan. 5, 1968), 56 Merton R. K., Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science, American Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Dec., 1957), 635 Merton R. K., Science and Technology in a Democratic Order, Journal of Legal and Politcal Sociology, 1 (1942), 115 Merton R. K., Science and Social Order, Philosophy of Science, 5 (1938), 321 Moscon V., Academic Freedom, Copyright, and Accessto Scholarly Works: A Comparative Perspective, in Caso R., Giovanella F., Balancing copyright law in the digital age: some comparative perspectives, Springer, 2015, 99 Reichman J. H., Okediji R., When Copyright Law and Science Collide: Empowering Digitally Integrated Research Methods on a Global Scale (September 19, 2012). Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 96, No. 4, 2012; Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper 12-54. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2149218 Shavell S., Should Copyright of Academic Works be Abolished?. The Journal of Legal Analysis, Forthcoming; Harvard Law and Economics Discussion Paper No. 655; Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 10-10. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=152566

Grading the Performance of a Legislator

The case is made that Rep Robert Kastenmeier should be honored as a distinguished public servant. His record reflects both a concern for the public interest and a sensitivity to the needs of special interest groups

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XIV, Issue 15

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XIV, Issue 10

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Displacing and Disrupting: A Dialogue on Hmong Studies and Asian American Studies

This article summarizes a roundtable discussion of scholars that took place at the Association for Asian American Studies Conference in San Francisco, 2014. Hailing from various academic disciplines, the participants explored the relationship between the emerging field of Hmong/Hmong American Studies and Asian American Studies. Questions of interest included: In what ways has Asian American Studies informed Hmong/Hmong American Studies, or failed to do so? In what ways does Hmong/Hmong American Studies enrich/challenge Asian American Studies? What are the tensions between these two fields and other related fields? How do/should the new programs in Hmong/Hmong American Studies relate to the existing Asian American Studies programs regarding curriculum, activism and/or resource allocation

The Public Funding of Health Care: A Brief Historical Overview of Principles, Practices, and Motives

Nationally sponsored programs designed to fund health care for the general public are largely a twentieth century phenomenon. Yet a long glance backward at the medical and public health history of Western civilization, extending from the ancient Greeks to the twentieth century, reveals earlier periods when governments, religious institutions, and other groups provided some measure of medical relief for the sick, the poor, and the homeless. In this essay, I will provide not an exhaustive but rather an illustrative account of this oft forgotten fact. My objectives are threefold. First, to remind us that the active concern of society for the health of its citizens is hardly a new development arising full born, as it were, out of the biomedical revolution and refined moral sensibilities of our present age. As I will suggest, our current interest in public health, and the related question of how to allocate medical resources fairly, is part of a larger evolutionary social process. Second, to conjecture that the impulse of caring for the sick and injured, using public or private resources,1 is typically driven by a variety of sometimes overlapping motivations, both religious and secular in origin. Third, to indicate that no single monolithic philosophy of providing medical care for the masses emerges from the historical record. That is, no unified pattern of health care organization or individual or communal motivation can plausibly account for this seemingly altruistic behavior, behavior which is putatively aimed at promoting the common good of all members of society. Given the interdisciplinary scope of this discussion, my inquiry will weave together sociological, psychological, and philosophical strands of evidence. Constraints of length will limit us primarily to developments in Europe and the United States. In the end, a limited sampling of societal practices, individual or communal motivations, and philosophical considerations will indicate that no simple story can be told about the public or private funding of health care. Proceeding more or less chronologically, I will introduce evidence demonstrating that redemptive, utilitarian, prudential, and charitable impulses (among others) are at work in the humane decision to use public or private funds to provide medical care for the benefit of the sick or infirm. While I do not claim that these four motivations constitute a complete list, they do emerge as a recurring and significant typology — helping to solidify the emerging modern public health movement in England, the United States, and elsewhere in the West by the late nineteenth century

A Radial Basis Function Method for Computing Helmholtz-Hodge Decompositions

A radial basis function (RBF) method based on matrix-valued kernels is presented and analyzed for computing two types of vector decompositions on bounded domains: one where the normal component of the divergence-free part of the field is specified on the boundary, and one where the tangential component of the curl-free part of the field specified. These two decompositions can then be combined to obtain a full Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition of the field, i.e. the sum of divergence-free, curl-free, and harmonic fields. All decompositions are computed from samples of the field at (possibly scattered) nodes over the domain, and all boundary conditions are imposed on the vector fields, not their potentials, distinguishing this technique from many current methods. Sobolev-type error estimates for the various decompositions are provided and demonstrated with numerical examples

Dietary Partitioning of Toxic Leaves and Fibrous Stems Differs Between Sympatric Specialist and Generalist Mammalian Herbivores

Dietary specialists often reside in habitats that provide a high and predictable abundance of their primary food, which is usually difficult for other herbivores to consume because of high levels of plant toxins or structural impediments. Therefore, sympatric specialist and generalist herbivores may partition food resources within and among plants. We compared how a dietary specialist (pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis) and generalist (mountain cottontail, Sylvilagus nuttallii) used sagebrush as a food resource during winter across 3 field sites in Idaho, USA, and in controlled feeding trials with captive rabbits. The proportion of sagebrush consumed by both rabbit species varied among sites, indicating that characteristics of sagebrush plants and the surrounding plant community influenced use of sagebrush. In addition, free-ranging and captive pygmy rabbits consumed a greater proportion of sagebrush and cropped smaller stem diameters with a greater proportion of sagebrush leaves (high monoterpenes, low fiber) relative to stems (low monoterpenes, high fiber) than did cottontails. Cottontails frequently discarded the leafy tips of sagebrush branches. Cottontails are more tolerant of fiber and less tolerant of sagebrush toxins than pygmy rabbits. Cottontails consumed large diameter stems, which diluted toxins in sagebrush but increased fiber intake and reduced digestible nitrogen intake. Pygmy rabbits are less tolerant of fiber but more able to detoxify and eliminate sagebrush toxins than cottontails. Pygmy rabbits consumed small diameter stems, which reduced fiber intake, but increased intake of toxins from sagebrush leaves. Although partitioning of stems and leaves within sagebrush plants may provide a mechanism for coexistence of specialist and generalist rabbits, higher than expected dietary overlap between both free-ranging and captive rabbits in winter might create resource competition in areas with high-density sympatric populations or low availability of sagebrush. In addition, these contrasting foraging strategies have the potential to influence dynamics of sagebrush communities over time

Comparative Effects of Tri-Polar Eclectic Teaching Approach on Students Academic Performance in Social Studies

This is an experimental study that examined the comparative effects of Tripolar Interactionist teaching strategy on the academic performance of Junior Secondary School III students of Adeyemi Demonstration secondary School Ondo in social studies. The instrument used for the study includes scheme of work, lesson notes prepared by the researcher and the result of the administered tests on the basis of the research conducted. Two groups of 25 students each were taught the same content and within six weeks using the conventional method and Tripolar Teaching Strategy comprising of enquiry, questioning and discussion methods. The findings showed that the students taught using Tri-polar Teaching strategy performed better at the higher and middle lowest level than students taught using conventional method. Based on the finding it was recommended that the configured teaching strategy tagged “Tri-polar” should be adopted for teaching and learning in Nigerian schools because of its enormous advantage in stimulating independent learning among others

The Google Book search settlement: A law and economics analysis

Beginning in December 2004 Google has pursued a new project to create a book search engine (Google Book Search). The project has released a storm of controversy around the globe. While the supporters of Google Book Search conceive the project as a first reasonable step towards unlimited access to knowledge in the information age, its opponents fear profound negative effects due to an erosion of copyright law. Our law and economics analysis of the Book Search Project suggests that – from a copyright perspective – the proposed settlement may be beneficial to right holders, consumers, and Google. For instance, it may provide a solution to the still unsolved dilemma of orphan works. From a competition policy perspective, we stress the important aspect that Google’s pricing algorithm for orphan and unclaimed works effectively replicates a competitive Nash-Bertrand market outcome under post-settlement, third-party oversight.Book Rights Registry; Competition Policy; Copyright; Fair Use; Google Book Search; Library Program; Orphan Works