4 ms·

I wonder if it'd be possible to short-circuit this process? It'd be difficult, but many states have public document laws. If the manuscript is written physicall

I wonder if it'd be possible to short-circuit this process? It'd be difficult, but many states have public document laws. If the manuscript is written physically using state-university equipment, I'd hope there's a nexus for the public to get that document. To try this I'm thinking about submitting a request to my alma mater for one such document. The request might need to be massaged and resent a couple of times. At that point, what's preventing me from asking for say the top 100 papers that are cited on GScholar? Hacking the system in this way could be pretty interesting.

p4bl0 12y ago
Actually, it should be checked by a lawyer, but it is entirely possible that the copyright transfer agreements that scientists sign when publishing in asshole-publisher owned journals have no legal value in France. The reason for that would be that: 1- the form is only signed by one party (the authors), 2- there is no counterparts to the copyright giveaway, and 3- the signature of a single authors is sufficient to give the consent of all the others, who may be from a different institution or even country.
- a_bonobo 12y ago
  Normally, scientists retain the copyright to their work, but sign an exclusive license to publish the work. Often this license is based on the additional work done by the journal (minor proof-reading and formatting), that's why preprint servers always serve the unformatted version (or in the format of the preprint server). For Science, for example: >Authors can immediately post the accepted work to their personal or institutional archive. >The accepted version is the paper that was accepted for publication by AAAS, including changes resulting from peer review, but prior to AAAS copyediting.) Source for Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/license.xhtml http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/lice... Same goes for Nature: >NPG does not require authors of original (primary) research papers to assign copyright of their published contributions. Authors grant NPG an exclusive licence to publish, in return for which they can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from the publisher of the journal. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html
  - p4bl0 12y ago
    > Normally, scientists retain the copyright to their work, but sign an exclusive license to publish the work. This actually vary between journals. For the ACM Digital Library for instance I was given the choice between the two options (and of course chose the license one).
  - greeneggs 12y ago
    I don't know that it is normal yet for authors to retain their copyrights. Certainly, Elsevier's policy is to require a copyright transfer unless the authors pay an open-access fee. http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-re...
- RA_Fisher 12y ago
  Yeah, I bet frefreedom of information lawd could provide a loop hole. With some automation maybe it's viable with a friendly university?
privong 12y ago
There is the arXiv[0]. In some fields—particularly physics and astronomy—the vast majority of papers are posted there, in addition to being available through the traditional journals. Not all papers have been peer-reviewed before being posted, but many have, an others are often updated to match their peer-reviewed versions. The formatting and copy-editing may be slightly different, but the scientific content generally matches quite well. [0] http://arxiv.org http://arxiv.org
return0 12y ago
There should be a law that prohibits publishers from claiming the copyrights of articles that describe work which is publicly funded. Its a no brainer and would allow authors to maintain their preprints in an open archive.

p4bl0 12y ago

Actually, it should be checked by a lawyer, but it is entirely possible that the copyright transfer agreements that scientists sign when publishing in asshole-publisher owned journals have no legal value in France. The reason for that would be that: 1- the form is only signed by one party (the authors), 2- there is no counterparts to the copyright giveaway, and 3- the signature of a single authors is sufficient to give the consent of all the others, who may be from a different institution or even country.

a_bonobo 12y ago
Normally, scientists retain the copyright to their work, but sign an exclusive license to publish the work. Often this license is based on the additional work done by the journal (minor proof-reading and formatting), that's why preprint servers always serve the unformatted version (or in the format of the preprint server). For Science, for example: >Authors can immediately post the accepted work to their personal or institutional archive. >The accepted version is the paper that was accepted for publication by AAAS, including changes resulting from peer review, but prior to AAAS copyediting.) Source for Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/license.xhtml http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/lice... Same goes for Nature: >NPG does not require authors of original (primary) research papers to assign copyright of their published contributions. Authors grant NPG an exclusive licence to publish, in return for which they can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from the publisher of the journal. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html
- p4bl0 12y ago
  > Normally, scientists retain the copyright to their work, but sign an exclusive license to publish the work. This actually vary between journals. For the ACM Digital Library for instance I was given the choice between the two options (and of course chose the license one).
- greeneggs 12y ago
  I don't know that it is normal yet for authors to retain their copyrights. Certainly, Elsevier's policy is to require a copyright transfer unless the authors pay an open-access fee. http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-re...
RA_Fisher 12y ago
Yeah, I bet frefreedom of information lawd could provide a loop hole. With some automation maybe it's viable with a friendly university?

privong 12y ago

There is the arXiv[0]. In some fields—particularly physics and astronomy—the vast majority of papers are posted there, in addition to being available through the traditional journals. Not all papers have been peer-reviewed before being posted, but many have, an others are often updated to match their peer-reviewed versions. The formatting and copy-editing may be slightly different, but the scientific content generally matches quite well. [0] http://arxiv.org http://arxiv.org

return0 12y ago

There should be a law that prohibits publishers from claiming the copyrights of articles that describe work which is publicly funded. Its a no brainer and would allow authors to maintain their preprints in an open archive.