A scholarly publishing market based on non-exclusive rights
Chris Armbruster, Cyberscience and the Knowledge-based Economy, Open Access and Trade Publishing: From Contradiction to Compatibility with Nonexclusive Copyright Licensing, a preprint, self-archived October 17, 2006.
Abstract: Open source, open content and open access are set to fundamentally alter the conditions of knowledge production and distribution. Open source, open content and open access are also the most tangible result of the shift towards eScience and digital networking. Yet, this article takes issue with widespread misperceptions about the nature of this shift. The focus is on knowledge distribution and scholarly publishing. It is argued, on the one hand, that for the academy there principally is no digital dilemma surrounding copyright and there is no contradiction between open science and the knowledge-based economy if profits are made from nonexclusive rights. On the other hand, pressure for the ‘digital doubling’ of research articles in OA repositories is misguided and OA publishing has no future outside biomedicine. Yet, commercial publishers must understand that business models based on the transfer of copyright have no future either. What is required of universities and governments, scholars and publishers, is to clear the way for digital innovations in knowledge distribution and scholarly publishing by enabling the emergence of a competitive market that is based on nonexclusive rights. This requires no change in the law but merely an end to the praxis of copyright transfer. The best way forward is the adoption of standard copyright licenses that reserve some rights, namely Attribution and No Derivative Works, but otherwise will allow for the unlimited reproduction, dissemination and use of the research article, commercial uses included.
source: A scholarly publishing market based on non-exclusive rights
