Here are some links to where the very same napster disanalogy has come up in the past:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0671.html http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#9.1 http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j002/Articles/art_harn.htm Stevan Harnad On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Peter Suber wrote: > Not Napster for Science > > If the past is any guide, it will be hard to argue for open access in a > month when P2P music swapping is a hot story in the news. Academics and > journalists who haven't encountered the idea of open access to > peer-reviewed journal articles and their preprints --just the people who > need to hear the argument-- find it too easy to assimilate this unfamiliar > idea to the more familiar one. "Napster for science" is the inevitable, > false, and damaging result. > > This is such a month. The Recording Industry Association of American > (RIAA) sued 261 music swappers on September 8, hoping to scare and deter > tens of millions of co-swappers. The lawsuits have greatly intensified the > public debate on file sharing and copyright. In fact, the discussion is > now broader and deeper, touching on what universities should do, what > parents should do, what music lovers should do, what musicians should do, > what music companies should do, what courts should do, and what legislators > should do. > > So this is a good time to say, once more, in public, with emphasis, that > open access to peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints is > fundamentally different from free online access to music files, despite one > obvious similarity. > > What makes music swapping interesting is that most musicians don't consent > to it and most file swappers don't seem to care. But I don't want to talk > about that, really, except as a contrast to the situation with journal > articles. Scientists and scholars *do* consent to publish their journal > articles without payment. This has been the rule in science and > scholarship since 1665 when the first science journals were launched in > London and Paris. Scholarly monographs and textbooks are different, > because authors can hope for royalties. For the same reason, most music, > film, and software are different. But journal articles are special. Music > companies and music lovers would call them peculiar. > > The fact that scholars eagerly submit articles to journals that don't pay > for them, even journals that demand that authors sign away their copyright, > is probably the best-kept secret about academic publishing among > non-academics. It's the fact that simultaneously explains the beauty of > open access and the mistake of "Napster for science". > > This peculiarity of journal articles should draw some of the public > attention generated by music swapping. Defenders and critics of music > swapping should both hear this intelligence and say, "Really? Scholars do > all that work researching and writing, and then give it away to some > journal? Either you're lying or free online access to journal articles is > completely different from free online access to music." But instead, we > tend to hear the opposite. Most people disregard this difference as > trifling or technical and equate consensual open access with unconsensual > Napsterism. > > If "Napster for science" communicates the basic free-of-price idea to a > larger public, then isn't it a useful phrase? The answer is No! It's true > that music swapping is about free online access to content. That's the > important similarity. But it's equally about an army of content creators > who resist free online access. It may be about freedom, but it's also > about copyright infringement. Careful writers, with careful readers, could > successfully compare open access with the first feature of Napsterism and > contrast it with the second. But why bother? It's much more effective to > define open access in its own right than to yoke it to the better-known but > different concept and then try to undo the confusion that results. > > Copyrighted scholarship does not face the same mass infringement that > copyrighted music does. And yet, like copyrighted music, most copyrighted > scholarship is locked away behind economic, legal, and technical > barriers. You might think it's ripe for a real Napster attack. But nobody > advocates this, least of all the open-access movement. Open access > proponents know that the peculiar legal standing of journal articles makes > free online access possible without infringement. The simple, sufficient > reason is consent. When authors and copyright holders consent to open > access, there is no infringement. > > With sex, we have no trouble seeing that consent is critical. Sex with the > consenting is one of life's great goods. Sex with the unconsenting is a > crime. If the public could see this fundamental distinction behind forms > of online access and file swapping, then open-access proponents could > welcome the comparison to Napster. It would show open access in the best > light. "You know that kind of free online access to music that makes most > musicians and all studios hopping mad? How cool would it be if they > consented to it? Imagine that. That's open access." > > Open access is free access by and for the willing. There is no vigilante > open access, no infringing, expropriating, or piratical open access. > > Of course I'm not saying that all journals consent to open access. Most > don't. I'm saying that academic authors consent to write and publish their > research articles without payment. The consent to relinquish payment is > directly connected to the consent to open access. Musicians would either > lose revenue from open access or fear that they would. That's why most > don't consent to it. But because scholars have already relinquished income > from articles, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from open > access. > > We can go further. Scholars don't just consent to relinquish payment and > copyright. They are eager to publish --at least journal articles-- even on > these harsh terms. Nothing shows more clearly that they write journal > articles for impact or influence, not revenue. Their interest lies in > making a contribution to knowledge, partly for its own sake and partly > because advancing knowledge will advance their careers. This explains why > open access serves their interests, and why limiting access to paying > customers (the traditional model in scholarly publishing and the RIAA model > for music) would violate their interests. > > Music swapping was practiced in the age of vinyl, but it took digital music > and the internet to make it widespread. It's widespread now because > something unexpectedly good happened, not because some creeping criminal > malice overtook tens of millions of people. We graduated from the age of > vinyl in two stages, first by recording music in bits, and then by creating > a worldwide network of bit-swapping machines. This was revolutionary > progress from every point of view. Now that we can make perfect copies and > distribute them at virtually no cost to a worldwide audience, we should > find ways to seize this beautiful opportunity, make it lawful, and enjoy > the new access to information that it makes possible. > > The RIAA and commercial journal publishers both have reason to fear that > the internet will make them unnecessary. They both respond to this fear by > making their products harder to use, less accessible, and more expensive, > which is surely perverse. The RIAA has now gone even further, trying to > intimidate users and make them afraid to take advantage of the power of the > internet. If it wins, then digital technology will be like sex in the > Victorian age. Virtue will be construed as resistance to all the beautiful > temptations. This will chill advances even to the consenting. > > I know that some fraction of music swapping carries the artist's consent > and encouragement. These artists consent to free downloads because for > them (as Tim O'Reilly put it in another context) invisibility is worse than > infringement. So while most musicians fear losing revenue from open > access, some don't. While most don't consent to it, some do. This fact > upsets the digital Puritanism of the RIAA and blurs the moral lines it has > tried to draw for music swapping. > > It may be that open access to music will increase net sales, and that most > musicians below the top ranks of superstardom will profit from it. I'm in > no position to say. But it is clear that the RIAA is engaged in > self-serving oversimplifications about both the economic interests of > musicians and the truth about copyright. The comparison to open access > helps us draw at least one lesson: copying digital files is *not* > theft. It's only unlawful when the files are copyrighted and when the > copyright holder refuses consent. But many files are in the public domain, > and many carry the copyright holder's consent to free or open access. This > is true for growing bodies of both music and scholarship. This is more > than lawful; it's wonderful. > > News coverage of the RIAA's 261 lawsuits > http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=riaa+261 > > * Postscript. In my view, Phase One of the open-access movement is to > secure open access to journal articles and their preprints. They're the > easiest case or low-hanging fruit because their authors already consent to > write and publish them without payment. > > However, we should imagine a Phase Two in which we persuade authors and > artists who do not currently consent to reconsider. Ripe for persuasion > are authors of scholarly monographs, who rarely earn royalties and, even > when they do, would benefit far more from the wide audience than the meager > checks. Also in this category are programmers who might shift from priced > to open source code. Novelists might be persuaded by the experience of the > Baen Free Library that the free online availability of the full-text > stimulates more sales than it kills. Finally, it might include musicians > who decide, with Janis Ian, that free access, wide recognition, and good > will generate more sales than high-priced invisibility. > > We can also imagine a Phase Three in which we enlarge and protect the > public domain by rolling back copyright extensions, establishing the > first-sale doctrine for digital content, restoring fair-use rights denied > by DRM, and letting federal copyright law preempt state contract or > licensing law. While all these steps would be advances for the free flow > of information, copyright reform is unnecessary for open access. All we > need is consent. All we need for the bulk of science and scholarship is > Phase One. All we need for music is Phase Two. > > If all we need is consent, and our idea is a worthy one, then all we need > is a chance to spread the word about it. We should be able to bootstrap > this good idea into reality by explaining, educating, and > persuading. Spread the word. (How cool is that?) > > * PPS. Does anyone know an online directory of *open-access music* --MP3 > files that are lawful to download and share because the copyright holder > has consented? Note that services like Apple iTunes that offer lawful > downloads, for pay, don't count.
