Re: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

[CHARLES OPPENHEIM]

I apologise to Professor Adams if he felt insulted by my comments.  
 I have never had a problem over the past three decades with publishers when
refusing to assign copyright to them  - dating from when I was a "mere" junior
lecturer. I do agree though that it is often difficult for junior members of
staff in an academic institution to push publishers hard.  That is why should 
be
a condition of employment that employees do NOT assign copyright to publishers
for journal articles.  The employee can then say to the publisher "I'm really
sorry, but my contract of employment does not allow me to assign copyright to
you." All publishers I know of accept such statements.

Also, if these contracts really are unfair, then why isn't Professor Adams
recommending action in a Court to have them deemed invalid in law?  There is
enough legislation, certainly in the EU, on unfair contractual terms to allow
for such a case to be made.  That's a far more sensible approach than
recommending people to sign a contract and then to breach it.

Charles

Professor Charles Oppenheim

--- On Fri, 7/1/11, CHARLES OPPENHEIM <c.oppenh...@btinternet.com> wrote:

      From: CHARLES OPPENHEIM <c.oppenh...@btinternet.com>
      Subject: Re: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum
      To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org
      Date: Friday, 7 January, 2011, 9:14

      What  interesting advice from a Professor of Business
      Administration!  Voluntarily 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 enforce 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'.

Charles

Professor Charles Oppenheim

--- On Fri, 7/1/11, Andrew A. Adams <a...@meiji.ac.jp> wrote:

      From: Andrew A. Adams <a...@meiji.ac.jp>
      Subject: Re: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum
      To:
      american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org
      Date: Friday, 7 January, 2011, 2:26

      As I say regularly in my talks on OA, don't worry about
      copyright. The
      contract between academic authors and publishers of journals
      is rather
      suspect anyway, to my mind. he consideration offered of
      distribution is not
      necessarily compelling enough for a publisher to even consider
      it a certain
      win in a court case. The worst that will happen is a take-down
      notice, which
      can be complied with by setting closed access via the email
      request button.
      No publisher is going to sue the author of an academic paper
      for making it
      available online. Such an act would almost certainly lead to a
      significant
      (though not universal) boycott of that journal/publisher by
      academics.
      Publishers know the old model is not sustainable and they're
      just trying to
      squeeze out as much profit as possible before it dies, while
      spreading FUD to
      slow down its decline. Don't worry about copyright. As Stevan
      says, CS and HE
      Physicists have been making their papers available for over
      twenty years
      without any significant problems.


      --
      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/