These famous lyrics come from the Beatles' song "Revolution." In 1986 the world
was startled to hear that the rights to this and most of the other Beatles songs had been
bought by Michael Jackson. Paul, George, and Ringo now have to ask Jackson's permission to
perform the music they wrote. They even have to pay him royalties. Meanwhile, Jackson can
authorise others to use Beatle's materials for any commercial purpose he sees fit. As a
result, "Revolution" itself is being used to sell Nike sneakers, and there is nothing the
Beatles can do about it.
This artistic tragedy may make many scientists thankful they are
not musicians. But wait a minute. Who owns scientific papers? Typically not the scientists
who write them, but rather the journals and publishing houses to which scientists routinely
grant their copyrights. Once scientists sign copyright forms, other scientists and even the
original scientific authors have to seek the journal's permission before reproducing the
figures and text which they created. The journals, in turn, can do what they like with
scientific papers. They can grant permission to reproduce or reprint them, or they can
refuse to grant permission. They can use scientific papers to advertise themselves in the
media. In all these instances the original authors are helpless. In some respects,
scientists are worse off than the Beatles. The contract with Michael Jackson at least
granted Paul, George, and Ringo an ongoing income. Scientists, on the other hand, not only
receive no income from the journals but often have to pay them page charges under the same
contracts by which they surrender their copyrights.
Why do scientists tolerate this situation? The
traditional answer is that they have no option. In this century journals have monopolised
scientific communication. They have provided virtually the only means of effectively and
efficiently communicating research findings to the broader scientific community. Scientists,
afraid of becoming like Father Mackenzie,
If you really like it, you can have the rights.
Journals
thus end up owning very valuable intellectual property which they barely contributed to
making. Taxpayers and charitable donors fund most research; universities house much of it;
scientists conceive of it, do the research, and pay to have it published; yet the journals
have complete control of the articles coming out of it.
There is no need for this any more. The recent development of the Internet, and in
particular the world wide web, provides scientists with a publishing alternative that is in
many ways superior to traditional journal publication. In brief, scientists with access to
web servers at their institutions now have the option of electronically publishing their
work themselves. Self publishing on the web enables scientists to:
Disseminate their work without forcing them to give up
copyright control.
Recently, we have argued in the medical and legal literatures that the
development of the Internet and its potential for scholarly self publishing will in the long
run cause the collapse of traditional journals.(1) (2) Our prognostications have
been extremely controversial in both health and legal circles.(3) (4) In the
short run, however, we think that Internet publishing might supplement journals rather than
replace them. Scientists interested in reaching as many of their colleagues as
possible-especially those colleagues as yet without Internet access-should distribute
their work as self published electronic preprints and simultaneously submit those preprints
for formal journal publication.
This significant step in the direction of
restoring scientists' control over the distribution and use of their own work will be
feasible only if journals agree to publish preprinted material. So far, biomedical journals
seem disinclined to do this. The New England of Medicine has, for instance, taken the
position that a manuscript distributed via email to a couple of dozen colleagues has been
previously published and will not be considered for inclusion in one of its issues.(5)
Such a pre-emptive strike against scientific self publishing is inappropriate for various
reasons. Firstly, biomedical journals have traditionally allowed a type of prepresentation
of scientific data by allowing research findings to be preliminarily communicated to
hundreds and even thousands of people at scientific conferences. Far from reducing the value
of their articles, such preliminary dissemination generally creates demand for them in more
finalised form. Electronic preprinting could well work the same way.
Secondly, biomedical
scientists currently operate within a reprint culture which generates income for journals
despite readers' access to photocopy machines; even if preprints of papers were available on
the Internet, a demand for papers published in journals would persist for some time.
Thirdly, the biomedical journals-and the scientists who edit them-should keep in mind
that their ultimate purpose in existing is to serve the scientific community, not to advance
or preserve themselves as institutions. What counts is the message, not the messenger.
Fourthly, biomedical journals have a duty to keep their own scientific subscribers
thoroughly informed of important developments in biomedical research as rapidly as possible.
Whether an important article has previously been preprinted is irrelevant to the fulfilment
of this duty.
Fifthly, biomedical journals refusing to publish preprinted material are
acting contrary to the established policy of journals in other disciplines, including
physics and law, which have tolerated and in some instances even encouraged preprinting.
Finally, biomedical journals refusing to publish preprinted articles are arguably
interfering with scientists' rights to do what they wish with their work before any
copyright transfer form has been signed; in other words, not content with the prospect of
controlling scientific publications after placement, the journals are indirectly attempting
to control them beforehand as well.
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right
or I am wrong,
While you see it your way
There's a chance we may fall apart before too long.
A new
way
If biomedical journals persist in refusing to publish preprinted articles, scientific
societies such as the British Medical Association, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the American Medical Association should consider stepping in to
ensure that they conduct themselves in responsible scientific fashion. It may be, however,
that these societies will decline to intervene, as many of them derive considerable revenue
from the publication of biomedical journals and may fear that preprinting might endanger
that.
In these circumstances biomedical scientists may have to take matters into their
own hands. Traditional protests might take the form of boycotting particular journals, or
stopping subscriptions. A more viable and increasingly plausible alternative might be for as
many biomedical scientists as possible to migrate directly to the Internet. There, like
physicists, they could create their own online community-complete with central archive and
reader rating of papers- where they could publish and speak directly to one another without
outside help or intervention. If anti-preprinting policies persisted the biomedical journals
might eventually wither from a lack of quality submissions.
To avoid this dramatic
development, biomedical journals should take dramatic action to make themselves more rather
than less attractive as publishers of scientific research. Instead of threatening scientists
with a stick they should consider offering them a carrot. This carrot might take the form of
a faster review process, elimination of page and reprint charges, or more Internet editions
of print based publications. In the light of concerns expressed earlier in this paper,
journals might also consider offering scientific authors the option of non-exclusive
licensing. This legal arrangement, already embraced by a number of forward looking print and
Internet based periodicals, would give biomedical journals the right to publish scientific
articles and derive some profit from them without requiring scientific authors to desist
from preprinting or even giving up their basic copyrights as a term of traditional
publication.
Scientists guaranteed ultimate physical and financial control of their work
would feel less obliged to choose between preprinting and formal publishing, between the
Internet and journals. They would be free to enjoy the best of both worlds for as long as
they might wish. In turn, the biomedical journals, far from doing themselves irreparable
harm, would be radically improving the chances of their own institutional survival-if not
necessarily forever, at least for a long while. At the same time, they would be able to
takepride in their renewed status as good citizens of the scientific community.
Think of
what I am saying,
We can work it out and get it straight or say good night.
We can work it
out,
We can work it out.
Addendum: The Global Health Network will be doing an
experiment to evaluate different forms of research communications on the Internet. A single
scientific research communication entitled "Scientists assassinate journals" was written
for lay readers, scientists, and editors in a "hypertext comicbook" format. It is
available in English, Spanish, Portugese, and Japanese. Viewers will have the opportunity to
comment as there are electronic forms to rate the piece on a scale of 1 to 5 and provide a
critique on the content and the format. We are encouraging as many people as possible to
visit the site: http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/GHNet/publications/assassin/index.html
Diabetes Research Center,
Rangos Research Center,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213,
USA
Ronald E LaPorte,
professor of
epidemiology
http://www.pitt.edu/~debaaron/laporte/html
University of
Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh,
PA 15260,
USA
Bernard Hibbitts,
professor of law
http://www.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/
Correspondence to: Professor LaPorte.
References:
1 LaPorte, R E,
Marler E, Akazawa S, Sauer F, Gamboa C, Shenton C, et al. The death of biomedical journals. BMJ 1995;310:1387-90.
2 Hibbitts BJ. Last writes? Re-assessing the law review in the age of
cyberspace. New York University Law Review 1996;71:615-18.
(http://www.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/lastrev.htm)
3 Helman T, Wood G, Macfadyen D, Nicholl
D, Kewley I, Bulstrode C J K. BMJ on the Internet. BMJ
1995;310:1674.
4 Hibbitts B J, et
al. Symposium issue on last writes. Akron Law Review (in press).
5 Kassirer
J P, Angell M. The Internet and the journal. N Engl J Med 1995;332:1709-10.
Following their earlier onslaught on print journals,(1)(2) Ron LaPorte
and Bernard Hibbitts argue-with a little help from the Beatles-that journals have forced
scientists to give up their copyrights and lose control of their work. The Internet, and the
possibility it offers of electronic self publishing, has changed all that, and they argue
that journals must recognise that the world has changed. We asked the editors of the
"BMJ," the "Lancet," the "New England Journal of Medicine," "JAMA," the "Annals of
Internal Medicine," "Science," and "Nature" for their comments. One didn't reply and
two declined, but the other four responded robustly.