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Research in a Privatized World
- To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
- Subject: Research in a Privatized World
- From: "William Walsh" <libwdw@langate.gsu.edu>
- Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:28:09 EST
- Reply-to: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
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Although he makes more interesting points elsewhere in the book, some on this list may be interested in the following quote from Kembrew McLeod's new book Freedom of Expression. McLeod, known for selling his soul on eBay and holding trademark to the phrase "freedom of expression" is in the Dept. of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. The excerpt is from a Creative Commons licensed PDF edition of the title. "This quest for more proprietary power, in turn, has undermined the basic mechanics of Western science's gift economy, where the norms of openness fueled the explosion of scientific discoveries over the past two centuries. Today, private companies are buying up the rights to academic journals in the sciences, arts, and humanities, something that undermines the free sharing of knowledge that has characterized academia. We academic authors are in a precarious position, because our tenure and promotion hinges on publishing in peer-reviewed journals. In most cases, we must give up our copyrights to what we write because it's a long-standing practice within the scholarly community. In the past, we scholars gave away our work*which was often referred to as a "contribution to the field"*in an act that resembles a gift exchange. By giving our words (and even our copyrights) to journals, it was understood that we were increasing the intellectual richness of our area of study. If the knowledge we contributed for free is well received by our peers, we are rewarded with enhanced reputations and merit pay raises. It's a classic example of the circuitous rewards of the gift economy. Today, however, this kind of academic gift economy is being threatened by the privatization of scholarly information, which significantly raises the price of access. On a related note, you wouldn't believe the number of professors and grad students I've talked to who have had to remove a journal article (or book chapter) from a course pack because the copyright holder wanted a staggering licensing fee." The Creative Commons licensed edition of the title is available online at: http://kembrew.com/documents/mcleod-freedomofexpression3.pdf Bill William Walsh Head, Acquisitions Department Georgia State University Library 100 Decatur Street, SE Atlanta, GA 30303 Phone: 404.651.2149 Fax: 404.651.2148 Email: wwalsh@gsu.edu
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