[GOAL] [SCHOLCOMM] BLOG: Is CC-BY really a problem or are we boxing shadows?

[Sandy Thatcher]

Klaus Graf and I debated this question in an article in the first 
issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 
back in 2012: 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254667054_Point_Counterpoint_Is_CC_BY_the_Best_Open_Access_License

I was particularly concerned about translations.  It should be noted, 
by the way, that the CC BY license in existence at the time we wrote 
this article contained a reference to distortion, mutilation, etc., 
as part of the license terms. That part was dropped in later 
iterations, and the only reference now is this: "Moral rights, such 
as the right of integrity, are not licensed under this Public 
License, nor are publicity, privacy, and/or other similar personality 
rights; however, to the extent possible, the Licensor waives and/or 
agrees not to assert any such rights held by the Licensor to the 
limited extent necessary to allow You to exercise the Licensed 
Rights, but not otherwise." In other words, licensors do not give up 
their moral rights by offering this license to users, but since moral 
rights are not recognized under British or US law (with a very 
limited exception under US law to works of fine art), that clause is 
of little comfort or utility for Anglo-American authors.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

I am glad to see that the Cambridge discussion continues to recognize 
that translations may be a problem for HSS authors.

There is one non sequitur in the Cambridge summary that needs to be 
addressed: "Academics do not publish in journals for money, so the 
originator of a work that is subsequently sold on is not personally 
losing a revenue stream." Just because an academic author may not be 
motivated by personal monetary gain does not mean that a personal 
revenue stream is not, in fact, lost in some circumstances. As former 
director of Penn State University Press, I can cite examples of 
authors who benefited to the tune of thousands of dollars from the 
reprinting of their articles from some of the journals we published.

There is a general problem also with the definition of what is 
"commercial." When Creative Commons itself conducted a survey several 
years ago as to what people understand to be the meaning of this word 
in the context of publishing, there was little consensus beyond a 
very small core of shared understanding of what the term means.

Sandy Thatcher




At 12:11 PM +0000 3/3/16, Danny Kingsley wrote:
><Apologies for cross posting>
>
>Dear all,
>
>You might be interested in the outcomes of a roundtable discussion 
>held at Cambridge University earlier this week on the topic of 
>Creative Commons Attribution licences.
>
>Is CC-BY really a problem or are we boxing shadows? 
><https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=555>https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=555
>
>A taster:
>***********************************
>
>Comments from researchers and colleagues have indicated some 
>disquiet about the Creative Commons (CC-BY) licence in some areas of 
>the academic community. However, in conversation with some legal 
>people and contemporaries at other institutions one of the 
>observations was that generally academics are not necessarily 
>cognizant with what the licences offer and indeed what protections 
>are available under regular copyright.
>
>To try and determine whether this was an education and advocacy 
>problem or if there are real issues we had a roundtable discussion 
>on 29 February at Cambridge University attended by about 35 people 
>who were a mixture of academics, administrators, publishers and 
>legal practitioners.
>
>In summary, the discussion indicated that CC-BY licences do 
>not encourage plagiarism, or issues with commercialism within 
>academia (although there is a broader ethical issue). However in 
>some cases CC-BY licences could pose problems for the moral 
>integrity of the work and cause issues with translations. CC-BY 
>licenses do create challenges for works containing sensitive 
>information and for works containing third party copyright.
>
>**************************************
>Please feel free to comment on the list. Due to a serious spam 
>problem with the blog, comments sent to the blog are being buried 
>(we are working on this).
>
>Thanks
>
>Danny
>--
>Dr Danny Kingsley
>Head of Scholarly Communications
>Cambridge University Library
>West Road, Cambridge CB39DR
>P: +44 (0) 1223 747 437
>M: +44 (0) 7711 500 564
>E: <mailto:dak45 at cam.ac.uk>dak45 at cam.ac.uk
>T: @dannykay68
>ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3636-5939


-- 
Sanford G. Thatcher
Frisco, TX  75034-5514
https://scholarsphere.psu.edu


"If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John Ruskin (1865)

"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people 
who can write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853)

"Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance 
with the limitations and incapacities of the human 
misunderstanding."-Ambrose Bierce (1906)
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