> What interesting advice from a Professor of Business Administration! Volu= > ntarily enter into a contract with a third party and then ignore its terms = > and conditions because the third party is unlikely to do anything to enforc= > e it. Well, if that's the nature of what is taught there, Meiji University= > is one place I will not be recommending anyone to study at. > > The solution is clear. DON'T ENTER INTO THAT CONTRACT IN THE FIRST PLACE! = > That approach is both legal and ethical, unlike Professor Adams'.
When faced with unfair contract terms, that's exactly the only thing that can be done. Or do you feel, Charles that the contract terms offered by scholarly publishers are fair and reasonable? As a junior academic (and even now as a more senior one) I'm hedged in by the more senior colleagues who have consistently, over the decades refused to reform the system of academic promotions, tenure, etc and allowed them to be captured by a system which prevents junior academics from retaining their rights. I know, I've tried, and finally had to capitulate to transfer of copyright to the pigopolist publishers because otherwise my work can't get published in the appropriate journals (specifically I missed the opportunity to submit work to special issues that were exactly the right place for the work I was doing, but which I refused for a short while to submit to because of contract terms). Meanwhile the more senior professors, and yes Charles I am specifically looking at you in this regard since you chose tyo make this a personal attack, have sat pretty on their tenure and promotions leaving junior academics subject to the unfair practices of a publishing business that's become a horrible parasite on academic communications. They \have done this by persisting in using locus of publication as aproxy for quality of publication, by continuing to sit on the editorial boards of journals published by these parasites. So, Charles, exactly how would you advise junior academics to avoid getting either screwed out of their rights or screwed by their seniors and peers on promotion? You're between a rock and a hard place because senior academics have set up the system and didn't give a damn about their juniors as the world changed around them, because they'd already achieved their security. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, Charles, your approach would have condemned Rosa Parks for refusing to comply with the terms of carriage of the bus companies in Montgomery. When a legal situation is biased, unfair and unjust you're damned right I advise people to violate the unfair terms of a contract. That's the way things actually change, rather than by handwringing. I also take this advice into practice in my own personal life. For example I was one of the people who pledged to refuse a UK ID Card if and when it became compulsory, and contributed my money ahead of time to the legal defence fund to help my fellow pledgers. I have always posted my own work freely available on my webpage and now do so in The Depot, until such time as my University has a repository I and my putative readers can use (it's there but only with a Japanese interface). Finally (I'm struggling to keep polite on this but hopefully managing it), please keep your ad hominem attacks on my professional ethics, what I teach and the University I teach at it off this list. It's unworthy of you, your position, your university and the standard of debate which should be on this list. Keep to the arguments and keep to the topic. Take your personal insults elsewhere (and that's the polite version). -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/
