[GOAL] [SCHOLCOMM] Willinsky proposes short copyright for researcharticles

[Heather Morrison]

Who would benefit from public domain (or CC-BY) as default to scholarly works? I argue: Elsevier would be the greatest beneficiary, and would do so through using such works as part of toll access products such as Scopus and their metadata services sold to rankings agencies (e.g. Times Higher Education for their World University Rankings) and universities. 

The idea of a reduced term of copyright for scholarly works is an appropriate one to raise, and the question of doing so after a one-year embargo is provocative. As context for my comments, please note that I am a strong supporter of reducing the terms and scope of copyright for all works. However, public domain for scholarly works within a year of publication raises a lot of questions that merit serious consideration before moving forward with policy recommendations. One such is: who would benefit? 

I argue that the organizations in the best position to profit from CC-BY or public domain are the large commercial scholarly publishers with lots of money to invest and a major advantage of being able to combine such works with the large collections of back issues to which they own exclusive copyright. For example, Elsevier can include all public domain or CC-BY works in Scopus, which is a toll access service. This would increase their profitability (even more content with less investment on their part, makes Scopus more of a must-have for libraries so strengthens their negotiating position). This is just as true of CC-BY as it is of public domain, and one of the reasons I argue against either CC-BY or public domain as a default for scholarly works. Other large commercial scholarly publishers such as Springer are potential beneficiaries as well, although Elsevier would be a tough competitor for any of them.

There are other major issues that merit consideration. Sandy Thatcher has pointed out that authors sometimes receive remuneration for their works after one year. I acknowledge and support this argument. For those of us with the benefit of well-paid tenured positions, this may be not be a salient issue, at least as long as we don’t have to go out on strike to protect our pensions.  However, a great deal of research is conducted by emerging scholars - students, post-docs, new professors without the benefit of tenure. In some areas, precarity if becoming more prevalent in academia. To me this means that one of the underlying bases of open access, the old tradition of scholars giving away their works, is under threat and should no longer be taken for granted. 

Thank you for cross-posting this. FYI to those on both lists, I am not on scholcomm so please feel free to forward this reply.

best,

-- 
Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor | Professeure agrégé
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa
http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca