4 ms·

Oh Mr. Byrne, you come from a different world. Having "doubts" that the authors of academic articles see "much of" a share of the money publishers or databases

Oh Mr. Byrne, you come from a different world. Having "doubts" that the authors of academic articles see "much of" a share of the money publishers or databases bring in suggests that there is some hope that we would see any of it. The reality is that almost nobody is paid for their articles, and almost nobody even expects to be. Often, the reviewers of articles -- the people who make journals worth reading at all -- are unpaid for that work. Even editors are often volunteers. I guess we cannot be surprised that a musician would have such a view of copyright. Of course, the article seems to go off the deep end at some points: "Imagine, as MIT seems to have briefly done, that it was the Chinese or North Koreans or some other entity stealing this data" Yes, imagine the horror if the Chinese or North Koreans were reading published scientific research. I am sure that the authors of these articles are terrified by the idea that people in China might learn from their work, thus explaining why they published in journals with a global reach.

frossie 14y ago
Just to be clear, not only do authors not get paid for journal articles, but it is not unusual that they have to pay to submit their articles (so-called "page charges"). Given that sometimes these researchers belong to organizations funded by the taxpayer, what you have is a situation where you, the taxpayer, are paying companies like Elsevier to profit from blocking access to publicly funded research.
- rayiner 14y ago
  No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. People are free to pony up the money to create an alternate system, and researchers are free to use it. Nothing is stopping them from doing so. People continue to pay Elsevier, JSTOR, etc, because they value the convenience of using a system that's already established and widely used.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research" Really, is that what we are paying them for? Well that's interesting, because the next paper I submit, which I am preparing now, is written in LaTeX and is submitted electronically. In the LaTeX source, I have to write keywords and codes that classify the article. The article is hosted on my website, which is hosted on the university's computer. So remind me, what is the publisher being paid for?
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > So remind me, what is the publisher being paid for? Nothing is stopping you from, you know, just not submitting your paper to Elsevier. You could just put up a link on your blog or something. Whatever thing it is that makes you submit to them instead of just doing that is what Elsevier is being paid for.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        In other words, they are paid because of the names of the journals they publish. Researchers rarely read bound copies of journals in this day and age; it is faster to download the articles they want to read. My work is published on my web page. I receive emails all the time about it, from people trying to make use of it. At the last meeting for the grant I paid on, my advisor and I were thanked by another research group for some of our work, and for helping that group get our code to run. All of that, however, amounts to nothing if the work is not published in a prestigious journal (or in my field, presented at a prestigious conference, but the conferences are run by the same companies that publish journals and the proceedings are published in the same fashion as journals). Yes, that is how this works. A researcher with a good reputation in their field, whose website provides quick and easy access to their work, has not advanced their career at all unless their work is published in some set of venues. This is not like interviewing for a tech company and giving them a link to your github account or showing them examples of your code; your CV has to contain a list of publications in major journals/conferences if you want to get anywhere in academia. It all boils down to the names of the journals. So the next time you want to remind someone that Elsevier is paid for something, you can tell them the truth: Elsevier is paid for the names of its journals.
  - marrs 14y ago
    > No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. The Web/Google?
    - rayiner 14y ago
      Nothing is stopping Google from setting up such a service, though I would personally rather just pay an upfront fee than sell Google more of my privacy.
  - kvb 14y ago
    Elsevier definitely provides a service, and should be remunerated for it. However, arguably most of their income is due to a "coordination game" rather than any value added - see The Parable of the Anarchists Annual Meeting[1]. [1]http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/anarchists.pdf http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/anarchists.pdf
    - rayiner 14y ago
      How is this different from the usual network effect?
      - kvb 14y ago
        It's not particularly different (though the low switching costs are somewhat unusual). Regardless, there's a network externality that allows Elsevier to capture excess rents. It's not that Elsevier doesn't provide any value, but at the same time, its profits outpace that value by a large margin. Nonetheless, coordination problems can easily prevent a competitor who pledges not to take those rents from disrupting Elsevier's position, so it's not as easy as saying "there's nothing stopping you from starting a new competitor".
  - olefoo 14y ago
    > No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. So why aren't those services let out for competitive bid? The agreements that were made in the past have severe negative externalities in the present environment. They must be renegotiated. We should not live in a feudal society where mere tradition grants a divine right of monopoly to publicly funded goods.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      As far as I can tell, it's not tradition that gives Elsevier its monopoly, it's simple network effect. It's the same reason you use Facebook or Google Chat instead of something else--by publishing on an Elsevier-affiliated journal, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        "by publishing on an Elsevier-affiliated journal, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs." No, by publishing freely on the Internet, without any paywall between readers and your article, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs. Publishing in a journal that is locked behind paywalls is one of the least efficient ways to communicate one's work to others. The only issue is that doing so does not help anyone's career, and failing to publish in major journals is fatal to such careers.
saturdaysaint 14y ago
His wording is loose (ie freely labelling Swartz' offenses "theft"), but he works his way to a pretty good handle on JSTOR's business model over the ensuing paragraphs. A lot of comments seem to reflexively interpret this as a musician defending outmoded conceptions of intellectual property - that's there, but he also does a thoughtful job of counterbalancing - but the heart of it is placing Swartz, Wikileaks et al in the context of other civil disobedience movements.
- betterunix 14y ago
  I read it somewhat differently. The following paragraphs demonstrate some awareness of the fact that researchers are rarely paid for their writings, or at least that he is willing to believe it when researchers take the time to say so. On the other hand, this is his summary of his view of the problem with academic publishing: "While I can empathize both with academics who might either want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely available to all—the choice, ideally, should be the authors'" His view of the problem, it seems, centers on the authors of academic articles. He continues that line of reasoning further down: "Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research" "There is a big difference in my opinion between using someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money" "I can certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big pharmaceutical company "owns" the data doesn't seem like a very morally defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal." The basis of his ideas about whether or not Aaron was doing the right thing or engaging in civil disobedience is strongly tied to his notion of what problem Aaron was trying to address. His background in the music industry clearly influences his interpretation of that problem, given the strong, author-centric view of copyright that he expresses. He misses the entire point of Aaron's actions: to make the knowledge conveyed by the articles available to everyone, regardless of what people do with it. Aaron was not trying to draw attention to the plight of researchers or the unfairness of the flow of money; Aaron was trying to ensure that knowledge would not be restricted to an elite class (one that is almost an aristocracy) by using the technology we now have available to us, the Internet. What Byrne misses, and where his argument goes off course, is that copyrights have never been about funding research. The purpose of copyright in academic research is to fund the distribution of those articles; the research itself is paid for by other means. Before the Internet, expensive industrial equipment was needed to distribute scientific writing on a mass scale, and copyright helped to ensure that the required industry would remain profitable (or at least that it could break even). Journals are a way for scientists to share their findings with others, which is necessary for both the progress of science (which Byrne correctly points out in his article) as well as for science to be beneficial to humanity (which Byrne misses: cancer research is useless if medical doctors, drug manufacturers, and the general public never learn about the results of the research). In today's world, we have a much more efficient way for scientists to communicate their findings, yet the continued application of copyright has prevented that system from being used effectively. Byrne misses that point, likely because his concept of why researchers publish their articles is based on his own experience as a musician and his concept of why musicians record and publish their music.

frossie 14y ago

Just to be clear, not only do authors not get paid for journal articles, but it is not unusual that they have to pay to submit their articles (so-called "page charges"). Given that sometimes these researchers belong to organizations funded by the taxpayer, what you have is a situation where you, the taxpayer, are paying companies like Elsevier to profit from blocking access to publicly funded research.

rayiner 14y ago
No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. People are free to pony up the money to create an alternate system, and researchers are free to use it. Nothing is stopping them from doing so. People continue to pay Elsevier, JSTOR, etc, because they value the convenience of using a system that's already established and widely used.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research" Really, is that what we are paying them for? Well that's interesting, because the next paper I submit, which I am preparing now, is written in LaTeX and is submitted electronically. In the LaTeX source, I have to write keywords and codes that classify the article. The article is hosted on my website, which is hosted on the university's computer. So remind me, what is the publisher being paid for?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > So remind me, what is the publisher being paid for? Nothing is stopping you from, you know, just not submitting your paper to Elsevier. You could just put up a link on your blog or something. Whatever thing it is that makes you submit to them instead of just doing that is what Elsevier is being paid for.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      In other words, they are paid because of the names of the journals they publish. Researchers rarely read bound copies of journals in this day and age; it is faster to download the articles they want to read. My work is published on my web page. I receive emails all the time about it, from people trying to make use of it. At the last meeting for the grant I paid on, my advisor and I were thanked by another research group for some of our work, and for helping that group get our code to run. All of that, however, amounts to nothing if the work is not published in a prestigious journal (or in my field, presented at a prestigious conference, but the conferences are run by the same companies that publish journals and the proceedings are published in the same fashion as journals). Yes, that is how this works. A researcher with a good reputation in their field, whose website provides quick and easy access to their work, has not advanced their career at all unless their work is published in some set of venues. This is not like interviewing for a tech company and giving them a link to your github account or showing them examples of your code; your CV has to contain a list of publications in major journals/conferences if you want to get anywhere in academia. It all boils down to the names of the journals. So the next time you want to remind someone that Elsevier is paid for something, you can tell them the truth: Elsevier is paid for the names of its journals.
- marrs 14y ago
  > No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. The Web/Google?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Nothing is stopping Google from setting up such a service, though I would personally rather just pay an upfront fee than sell Google more of my privacy.
- kvb 14y ago
  Elsevier definitely provides a service, and should be remunerated for it. However, arguably most of their income is due to a "coordination game" rather than any value added - see The Parable of the Anarchists Annual Meeting[1]. [1]http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/anarchists.pdf http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/anarchists.pdf
  - rayiner 14y ago
    How is this different from the usual network effect?
    - kvb 14y ago
      It's not particularly different (though the low switching costs are somewhat unusual). Regardless, there's a network externality that allows Elsevier to capture excess rents. It's not that Elsevier doesn't provide any value, but at the same time, its profits outpace that value by a large margin. Nonetheless, coordination problems can easily prevent a competitor who pledges not to take those rents from disrupting Elsevier's position, so it's not as easy as saying "there's nothing stopping you from starting a new competitor".
- olefoo 14y ago
  > No, you're paying Elsevier to digitize, index, catalogue, and host publicly funded research. None of that is free. So why aren't those services let out for competitive bid? The agreements that were made in the past have severe negative externalities in the present environment. They must be renegotiated. We should not live in a feudal society where mere tradition grants a divine right of monopoly to publicly funded goods.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    As far as I can tell, it's not tradition that gives Elsevier its monopoly, it's simple network effect. It's the same reason you use Facebook or Google Chat instead of something else--by publishing on an Elsevier-affiliated journal, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "by publishing on an Elsevier-affiliated journal, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs." No, by publishing freely on the Internet, without any paywall between readers and your article, your academic work reaches the most eyeballs. Publishing in a journal that is locked behind paywalls is one of the least efficient ways to communicate one's work to others. The only issue is that doing so does not help anyone's career, and failing to publish in major journals is fatal to such careers.

saturdaysaint 14y ago

His wording is loose (ie freely labelling Swartz' offenses "theft"), but he works his way to a pretty good handle on JSTOR's business model over the ensuing paragraphs. A lot of comments seem to reflexively interpret this as a musician defending outmoded conceptions of intellectual property - that's there, but he also does a thoughtful job of counterbalancing - but the heart of it is placing Swartz, Wikileaks et al in the context of other civil disobedience movements.

betterunix 14y ago
I read it somewhat differently. The following paragraphs demonstrate some awareness of the fact that researchers are rarely paid for their writings, or at least that he is willing to believe it when researchers take the time to say so. On the other hand, this is his summary of his view of the problem with academic publishing: "While I can empathize both with academics who might either want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely available to all—the choice, ideally, should be the authors'" His view of the problem, it seems, centers on the authors of academic articles. He continues that line of reasoning further down: "Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research" "There is a big difference in my opinion between using someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money" "I can certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big pharmaceutical company "owns" the data doesn't seem like a very morally defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal." The basis of his ideas about whether or not Aaron was doing the right thing or engaging in civil disobedience is strongly tied to his notion of what problem Aaron was trying to address. His background in the music industry clearly influences his interpretation of that problem, given the strong, author-centric view of copyright that he expresses. He misses the entire point of Aaron's actions: to make the knowledge conveyed by the articles available to everyone, regardless of what people do with it. Aaron was not trying to draw attention to the plight of researchers or the unfairness of the flow of money; Aaron was trying to ensure that knowledge would not be restricted to an elite class (one that is almost an aristocracy) by using the technology we now have available to us, the Internet. What Byrne misses, and where his argument goes off course, is that copyrights have never been about funding research. The purpose of copyright in academic research is to fund the distribution of those articles; the research itself is paid for by other means. Before the Internet, expensive industrial equipment was needed to distribute scientific writing on a mass scale, and copyright helped to ensure that the required industry would remain profitable (or at least that it could break even). Journals are a way for scientists to share their findings with others, which is necessary for both the progress of science (which Byrne correctly points out in his article) as well as for science to be beneficial to humanity (which Byrne misses: cancer research is useless if medical doctors, drug manufacturers, and the general public never learn about the results of the research). In today's world, we have a much more efficient way for scientists to communicate their findings, yet the continued application of copyright has prevented that system from being used effectively. Byrne misses that point, likely because his concept of why researchers publish their articles is based on his own experience as a musician and his concept of why musicians record and publish their music.