Re: A Role for SPARC in Freeing the Refereed Literature

From: Jim Till <till_at_UHNRES.UTORONTO.CA>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:34:50 -0400

I suspect that Stevan will soon inform me that threads like this one are
beyond the scope of this particular forum, but I can imagine (very
undesirable!) scenarios where open-archiving via 'allo-piracy' might
be attempted.

Suppose, for example, that some small, somewhat underdeveloped nation (but
not so underdeveloped that it has no internet infrastructure) decided to
turn a 'blind eye' to the establishment of such an open archive. Could
this be prevented?

--Jim Till


> On Wed, 21 Jun 2000, Jim Till wrote:
>
> [jt] If the radical (and undesirable) scenario outlined by David Goodman
> [jt] (illegal free distribution) cannot be prevented, perhaps extensive
> [jt] stable open-archiving of such illegally-distributed research
> [jt] results also can't be prevented?

On Wed, 21 Jun 2000, Stevan Harnad responded [in part]:

> [sh] Now what Jim seems to be suggesting above is that one could somehow
> [sh] get to open-archiving via allo-piracy. I steal YOUR product, and
> [sh] then publicly archive it for one and all. Of course that won't
> [sh] work! For the reason above. The only one who can SELF-archive his
> [sh] own work with impunity is oneSELF. So napster-style, consumer-end
> [sh] allo-piracy has nothing to whatsoever do with it; it's totally
> [sh] out of the loop.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > On Wed, 21 Jun 2000, David Goodman wrote [in response to Steavn Harnad]:
> >
> > > [dg] I think most of us in this discussion fully support the efforts
> > > [dg] you and others are making to permit and facilitate legal free
> > > [dg] distribution of the results of research. But regardless of their
> > > [dg] sucess, the predominant mode of access may conceivably switch to
> > > [dg] illegal free distribution, regardless of all efforts to prevent
> > > [dg] it. Of course most of us -- I hope -- think this very
> > > [dg] undesirable, but that might not prevent it from happenning.
> > >
> > > Stevan Harnad wrote:
> >
> > > > [sh] Please see the "napster" thread in this Forum. My own view is
> > > > [sh] that there is a profound DISanalogy between consumer-end
> > > > [sh] rip-off, napster-style, of NON-give-away work (such as MP3
> > > > [sh] music), whichis illegal and not to be condoned, and author-end
> > > > [sh] open-archiving of give-away work (refereed research reports),
> > > > [sh] which can be done completely legally, and is both optimal for
> > > > [sh] research and researchers and inevitable.
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT