[GOAL] Re: CC-BY: the wrong goal for open access, and neither necessary nor sufficient for data and text mining

[Couture Marc]

Heather Morrison wrote:

>
> you [Ross Mounce] and other researchers are knowingly using illegal methods
> for gaining access to research literature such as asking for PDFs over twitter. 
>

Maybe we need legal advice here, but I always assumed that making a copy of a work for private research purposes was covered by fair use / fair dealing provisions (or similar ones).

There could be subtle differences between jurisdictions (I'm quite confident in the case of  fair dealing according to Canadian law), but I certainly would hesitate to call such actions "illegal".

>
> ... are researchers telling human research subjects that their contributions may be given 
> on a blanket basis for third parties to sell? I would argue that CC-BY, where human 
> subjects are involved, will frequently be in violation of research ethics.
>

That's a broad stretch! I happen to sit on a research ethics committee, and if participants to a research are normally informed that the results will be published, they are never given any information about specific venues.

Maybe participants could be asked if they allow money (or profit) be made with the publication of the results of the research in with they contribute. Personally, I would find it unnecessary, from an ethics perspective. And think of it: if participants objected, it would mean no publication not only in journals using CC-BY, but in ANY journal which could be considered commercial, i.e. receives money from subscribers or authors.

By the way, this raises the question of the somewhat fuzzy meaning of a term like "non commercial", but we may come to this later, in a discussion of the NC and ND options of CC licences.


Marc Couture