On Mon, 1 Sep 2003, Stevan Harnad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (4) PUBLIC ACCESS VS. PUBLIC DOMAIN: AUTHORSHIP, CREDIT, PLAGIARISM, > PRIORITY, TEXT-INTEGRITY. I don't fully understand the notion of > making one's writing "public domain" instead of retaining copyright, > but if that puts either the text's authorship or the text's verbatim > integrity at any risk -- i.e., if someone else could then legally > reproduce my text without my name as author, or even attaching his own
> name, or could reproduce my text in an altered form, with or without > my name -- then it is certain that researchers will not want that! > It's one thing to give away access to one's text for free online, for > anyone and everyone to read and to use (the *content* of the text, > while quoting/citing/attributing any actual *words* used from the text > itself), and quite another thing to renounce one's right to protect > the integrity of one's text, or to be fully credited with its > authorship. Licensing your academic works under a contract is *far* more effective than making a dedication to the "public domain." That way you can define the exact terms and conditions under which you are publishing those works. All this and *still* help to create a public commons of copyrightable works -- if you use the right open source license. With a contract, you can insist upon your right as the original author to proper attribution and you can require those who modify your work to acknowledge that they've changed it. We're each of us entitled to care about our "own big ego" if that's important to us, and I don't agree with the person who suggested that the demand for proper author attribution contradicts our goal of "fostering the true spirit of science, to understand the universe." (Quotations from earlier emails in this thread.) While honesty and fair dealing often prevail in academic activities absent a contract, I prefer making my rules explicit. I've started publishing some of my articles with the following notices: (C) Copyright 2003 <my name> Licensed under the Open Software License version 2.0 ATTRIBUTION NOTICE: Any text I want to include that is descriptive of my contribution and the contributions of the people who helped me. I include my email address. The OSL version 2.0 (www.rosenlaw.com/osl2.0.html) contains the following provision to protect an author's attribution rights: 6) Attribution Rights. You must retain, in the Source Code of any Derivative Works that You create, all copyright, patent or trademark notices from the Source Code of the Original Work, as well as any notices of licensing and any descriptive text identified therein as an "Attribution Notice." You must cause the Source Code for any Derivative Works that You create to carry a prominent Attribution Notice reasonably calculated to inform recipients that You have modified the Original Work. Don't be confused by the words "Source Code." According to the OSL, that's merely the "preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and all available documentation describing how to modify the Original Work." In the case of a published article, contribution to a scientific or technical journal, or other publication, the Source Code is the word processing document, the music score, the graphic image, or even the email to which the original work is attached. The OSL can be used for much more than just software. It can prevent licensees from removing the author's signature from a photograph, a song, a novel or any other written work. The OSL sets attribution rules that are helpful to the authors of original works but are not unduly painful to those who distribute copies or create derivative works. That's the balance that was previously crafted in the Artistic License (http://opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license.php) and its progeny on the OSI-approved license list. I incorporated the attribution rights clause into the OSL because those who contribute to the public their free software -- or other "artistic" works in source-code form -- often insist upon it. /Larry Rosen General counsel, Open Source Initiative P.S. In true open source fashion, nothing in the OSL, including its attribution rights clause, interferes with the fair use rights of the public to any work so licensed. Just like the public domain, only more precise. (C) Copyright 2003 Lawrence E. Rosen Licensed under the Open Software License version 2.0 (www.rosenlaw.com/osl2.0.html) ATTRIBUTION NOTICE: Originally published on [EMAIL PROTECTED] and cross-posted to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3