TechWag

Interesting what is starting to come to light, for people who release their work under creative commons, there have been attempts both on the DMCA side of the house to take down the free copies of works that the DCMA take down did not own. There have also been attempts by music, television, and now education in charging people for access to works that are Creative Commons licensed, or have been released open no copyright.

Another interesting twist to this is the use of YouTube videos in commercial productions with no attribution back to the author of the original work.

Earlier last week we covered the whole SFWA taking down lists and works via the DMCA that it did not control, even if the authors had requested that the SFWA does not need to represent them, nor did they want representation from the group. Now moving onto education that is predicated on the free and open access to research we find something similar happening.

Works are released open Creative Commons, only to find that others are charging for access to that material, material that is needed especially in an education system, so that research can be conducted. If education gets the idea that all works need to be copyrighted, and that access to information for educators needs to be paid for, we are doomed when it comes to making the next generation of scholars.

I have been dismayed (previous post: “Open Access”) at the lack of commitment to OA by mainstream (primarily toll-access (TA)) publishers and have described this as a “systemic failure” of the industry. Here is another unacceptable lack of clarity and commitment from an Open Access journal from a major publisher. I had been investigating OUP’s site for another reason (PRISM: Open Letter to Oxford University Press) and since I had published with them thought I would have a look at papers I had written (”I” and “my” include co-authors). This is what I found (screenshot): Source: Petermr’s Blog

The bad part is that a true focus on copyright and payment will have a devastating influence on education, and generating scholars. The repository of knowledge stored away with payment per access or in the case of colleges, payment based on student body has a major impact on scholars, and researchers. If you cannot find out what has been tested before at a low cost or no cost, then it becomes problematic for future researchers to build on the knowledge of others. And that really in the bottom line is what education and research is all about.

Tags: funding, education, Politics //