When a publisher loses perspective

April 26, 2007

Wiley certainly seems to have (via Pedro) and sent a cease & desist letter to Shelley Batts for using a table and graphs from a recent paper (used in support of a blog post). Shelley did comply, regenerating the graphics in excel.

I don’t have to tell you where I stand on this issue. She was not reproducing the article in it’s entirety, but rather talking about science with supporting information (and just a little) from a paper, not unlike a scientist giving a talk at a conference. It’s just a different medium. Somehow I feel that the publishing industry just doesn’t get it. A paper in a journal is not about archival. It’s about generating discussion. It’s another reason I am very leery of using figures from journals when the policies are unclear or I don’t know what they are. Someone at journals needs to really think about what the role of scientific blogging is.

Further coverage at Postgenomic

Update: Wiley have rescinded the letter, and issued an apology. Not sure whether it was the bad publicity or an honest mistake (Euan has a nice post).

Further reading:
Pedro on copyright policies

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Posted by Deepak Singh | Filed Under Admin, Open Science 

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    • ^
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    on this issue, my perspective (shameless plug from my blog) about the uncertain role of science blogging

    "In the context of online dissemination of “hot” research either the publishers worry that the number of “free” online viewers of such blogs/websites are inordinately more because of which they (publishers) are loosing potential revenue from some of those free viewers - they could have been forced to buy the journal if not for my blog/website - or they are still confused about the free online advertisement they are getting for their journals and research published therein by these online discussions."

    Only when scientists directly publish their research results in their webpages and/or their parent organization's endorsed pages (or "free journals") such "locking up" of research by middlemen (publishers, who invest a lot of money and in turn want profit) will stop.

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