Dear all: Thanks to Alexey's letter, I reminded my question I have had for a while.
Alexey mentioned- "Most of our work is funded by tax money and should be in public domain by definition. If the taxpayers paid for the work, then they own the results. Publications are the results." I think (as an ordinary guy, no law major and even did not take any law subject) logically the results from projects funded by tax money should be available for tax payers (including us) without any restriction. We pay for research and then we pay for reading results of the research. Isn't it double payment? Is there any thing wrong in my logic? What do you think about this logic in the big picture not just focused on any law related to copywright or properties? Deeply thanks for all of your discussion. A few days I really enjoyed the Ecolog letters!! Best wishes, Dong-Gill On 5/14/09, Alexey Voinov <[email protected]> wrote: > > To All: > > I just want to make sure that this excellent link does not get buried in > the discussion. Mendeley offers some really cool services to share your > papers. It's not as good as the peer-to-peer exchange, but supposedly safer > in terms of copyright. > > Please take a look at > http://www.mendeley.com/ > > Mendeley Desktop is free academic software for managing and sharing > research papers. It is pretty cool to keep track of all the papers that you > have downloaded to your hard disk and works like iTunes for music. > > Mendeley Web lets you manage your papers online, discover research trends > and connect to like-minded researchers. The more of us join, the larger the > WWW library that we will get access to. Please consider joining. > > The article that was sent earlier is at > > http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/mendeleys-klingon-battle-cruiser-de-cloaks-in-london-with-the-lastfm-for-academia/ > and gives some background about the company. > > If we could all subscribe and upload our publications to Mendeley we would > already solve a lot of problems with access to our publications. > > > To Gavin and likeminded: > > Thanks for the warnings, your points are well taken. Each and everyone has > their own level of risk tolerance and sets of justifications for what we > choose to do. > > Here are mine: > > - It has been shown in numerous research that existing patent and copyright > law is stifling progress. Those who were initially supposed to be benefiting > from these laws are in fact among the losers. Most of the profits are reaped > by those who have nothing to do with research. > > - Since we don't have the lobbying power and skills to change the existing > laws (at least for now), some level of civil disobedience (thanks Bill, I > really liked that) should be only expected. > > - Unlike musicians, we are not even paid by the publishers to do our > research. In fact we volunteer to edit and review papers for them to > benefit. I think it's very unlikely that the publishers will go after > scientists, since they are smart enough not to kill the goose that lays the > golden eggs for them. They are in fact the pirates, which was very elegantly > described in the article that I've already sent earlier. > ( > http://eaves.ca/2009/04/28/education-where-copyrighters-and-publishers-are-the-pirates/ > ) > > - Most of our work is funded by tax money and should be in public domain by > definition. If the taxpayers paid for the work, then they own the results. > Publications are the results. > > To Jim and others who are easily pissed: > > Don't put your work on the web. If you post it on the web in open access - > then it is open access. You can't at the same time use the web to show off > and expect that nobody will want to use your photos (especially if they are > good). If you wish to restrict the use of your photos - then make it clear > and restrict access. > > We all work hard but some of us actually feel good when others find our > work good enough to use and our ideas smart enough to further disseminate > for the common good. > > Cheers, > Alexey > > -- > Alexey Voinov > _____________________________________________________________________ > !!!**** please note new e-mail address: [email protected] ****!!! > _____________________________________________________________________ > Chesapeake Research Consortium Community Modeling Program & > Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Geography and Environm. Engineering > 645 Contees Wharf Road, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037 > TEL: 410 798-1283; 703 880-1178 WWW: http://www.likbez.com/AV > -- The important thing is to never stop questioning - Albert Einstein
