I have just joined this list - excuse this belated transmission of a point of view to the Harnad/Johnson exchange of last week:
SH> ...and to be ensured that the text is not altered or corrupted in any way, SJ>I have to confess that I have no real idea what this latter SJ>condition really means. Misattribution of authorship for SJ>subsequent revisions and work is certainly an issue, but SJ>just what does it mean for the author to assert that the SJ>text is not to be altered or corrupted? The subsequent thread seemed to veer away from the question, "just what does it mean for the author to assert that the text is not to be altered or corrupted?" Here's my take on the integrity right, with a few supplementary questions: Authors have the right to expect that their work will not be tampered with in such a way as to misrepresent their opinions, sully their reputations or otherwise bring dishonour and obloquy on their heads. While this absolutist position can be insisted upon to the letter, comma and space in fiction and poetry, in the world of academic journals the integrity right is conditional on achieving a canonical version of the text. That is, the author submits the paper to the publisher on the understanding that there may well be, and usually is, a phase during which the text is reviewed, revised, often copy-edited, and sometimes completely re-arranged, ideally, but not always in a collaborative process. Traditionally, the integrity of the text is not insisted upon at this stage (as the author can always withdraw from the process in the pre-contractual period if s/he doesn't like the changes). So what the author's moral right of integrity applies to is the version that is actually printed, even though this may be some distance from the original version. In preprint archives, we start with the absolutist position: the author's original is the canonical version and this is the version to which the integrity right applies. When the postprint is placed on the server, this replaces the preprint as the new "integral", canonical version. I'm not sure how this can apply to the "corrigendum" option of Stevan's self-archiving methodology. Does the author assert the integrity right to the preprint and to the corrigenda? More vexing is the question of how any form of integrity right can fit in with copyleft - or any of the other moral rights (attribution/misattribution). If you feel that the identity of the "original" (?) author is of any importance, then surely the idea of releasing text under copyleft is to be resisted? Chris Zielinski Director, Information Waystations and Staging Posts Network e-mail: [email protected] and [email protected] web site: http://www.iwsp.org -----Original Message----- From: September 1998 American Scientist Forum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Seth Johnson Sent: 10 February 2002 08:30 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist Stevan Harnad wrote: > > [. . .] Apart from wanting to be > properly credited for its authorship (i.e., protected from plagiarism) > and to be ensured that the text is not altered or corrupted in any way, I have to confess that I have no real idea what this latter condition really means. Misattribution of authorship for subsequent revisions and work is certainly an issue, but just what does it mean for the author to assert that the text is not to be altered or corrupted? > < SNIP >
