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

[Pippa Smart]

I believe moral rights (attribution and integrity) are upheld in UK law (
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/I/chapter/IV)

My own issue with CC BY is that its simplicity results in a clumsy catchall
- for example, few authors would object to figures from their work being
used in another work (=derivative work), but might be unhappy about a
translation being produced without their knowledge (=derivative work).

Your point about commercial use is well made since this is the area where I
hear most complaints from authors - the fact that their publisher can make
money is accepted in many cases, but the idea that a third party can
"freeload" and make money out of their work is often considered
unacceptable.

Pippa

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Pippa Smart
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On 3 March 2016 at 13:46, Sandy Thatcher <sgt3 at psu.edu> wrote:

> 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
>
> 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: 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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