Academics and researchers are pressed by their institutions to publish or perish; however, it seems that researchers do the work and the publisher controls it and profits from their labor. According to Ruggiero (2016):
"The difference between academic publishing and other types of creative work is in who owns the rights and who gets paid. Simply put, the author does not get money once the article is published in the journal, the academic editors and peer reviewers are not paid for reviewing these articles. The publisher gives nothing and gets everything."
What is your opinion about this situation? Is there an ethical argument for having a black market in academic papers for the greater good? Read the entire article here:
http://theconversation.com/the-black-market-in-academic-papers-and-why-its-spooking-publishers-57296
Reference
Ruggiero, D. (2016). The black market in academic papers – and why it’s spooking publishers. The Conversation. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/the-black-market-in-academic-papers-and-why-its-spooking-publishers-57296
Ruth - a timely topic. I think that the major publishing houses are becoming acutely aware that their traditional business model is becoming increasingly tenuous. The recent subscription boycotting by major academic institutions/institutes is testament to that. There will be change - but I see it as insidious change - rather than anything radical. As long the highly competitive 'publish or perish' phenomena exists then the large publishing houses can maintain their business model monopoly. To me, the high risk of any 'black market' is the lack of regulation and unscrupulous operators. We only have to evidence the growth of predatory open access organisations to witness 'where it all goes wrong'. I think that the best that we can do is keep lobbying and raising questions of the main publishing houses and/or champion the practices of smaller and more personal/ethical companies. 'They can run - but they can't hide'!!
Ruth - a timely topic. I think that the major publishing houses are becoming acutely aware that their traditional business model is becoming increasingly tenuous. The recent subscription boycotting by major academic institutions/institutes is testament to that. There will be change - but I see it as insidious change - rather than anything radical. As long the highly competitive 'publish or perish' phenomena exists then the large publishing houses can maintain their business model monopoly. To me, the high risk of any 'black market' is the lack of regulation and unscrupulous operators. We only have to evidence the growth of predatory open access organisations to witness 'where it all goes wrong'. I think that the best that we can do is keep lobbying and raising questions of the main publishing houses and/or champion the practices of smaller and more personal/ethical companies. 'They can run - but they can't hide'!!
Definitely, it is a worldwide trend where academics and researchers are pressed by their institutions to publish or perish. It has two implications:
1) Emergence of paid publishing houses where control and monopoly lies in their hands and researchers have little choice but to pay and publish. This has created a vast body of literature which may be substandard in technique and content. The need of the hour is to have a deep introspection by the researchers as well as publishing companies.
2 ) One good paper is worth than scores of papers if that paper is published in a very good journal or publishing house as it is more productive and useful not only for the researcher but also to the institutions and society as a whole.
Well, this is a problem, but a fairly recent one. Not too long ago journals made little or no profit and had no intension of doing so. Often they were organs of various learned societies. Managed by the members of the society. Editors were appointed. Referees were doing a noble favour for colleagues. The journals circulation was primarily made up of the members of their learned society, and academic libraries around the world. Thee authors benefitted from their work being spread far and wide. Kudos came their way. Everyone was happy. All was well.
Enter big Anglo-Saxon capitalism (American and British). Money to be made. Buy the rights held by journals. Sell articles one at a time on request AND large fees. Stop authors distributing their own work but threat of copyright laws being applied. Say you're doing all this to preserve the sanctity of human intellectual endeavour. Money made by copyright owners. Nothing paid to authors or referees. Much anger and sadness.
Solution? Copyright should end after a reasonable period. 5-10 years. The copyright holders make their profit early on. Then your article rots away with little attention put on its distribution other than the odd sale here and there. No need to pay authors, no need for authors to pay for publication. It's quid pro quo. But do throw referees a few pennies for the sake of decency.
Christopher NOCK
Also, it's a bogus comparison to put academic publishing up against commercial publishing. There are very few reads of most academic articles in comparison with (successful) commercial publications. There's little money to share with authors. My article on the welfare state didn't attract as many readers as Harry Potter Potter! Maybe it should, but that's another matter.
It's also false to say that the "publisher gives nothing." It gives us opportunity to widen our audience. It pays the costs of production and distribution. Quality journals play a key role in maintaining academic standards.
Christopher NOCK
Thank you for posting such an important topic,
I think that this black market is pushing hard the predatory open access journals to grow. It also gives reasons to those websites that download papers and books illegally and republish it publicly for free (i.e. Sci-hub). Unfortunately, the big publishers are not aware of how they actually push this business and force researchers to gradually starting using these services.
However, some publishers, such as Plos and Nature started a good projects that are affordable. Plos One (by Plos) and Scientific Reports (by Nature) are good examples to overcome this issue. They offer open access publication service with an affordable price and keep the quality of the publication.
Hope more publishers follow these examples to help researchers get their publication in good journals.
Having open-source reviewing and publishing website(s) may be the ultimate solution:
Think about how Wikipedia versus Microsoft Encarta started, both were digital multimedia encyclopedias.
Wikipedia was done by everyone interested to share and free of charge, flourishing to its current status.
Encarta, the paid version, survived only 1993 to 2009.
Is there any similar "Wikipedia" to publish academic articles after peer review process?
Colleagues, after reading your posts, I am even more disheartened than before. Since being credentialed in 2014 I have been extremely busy with my consulting business and have had no time to publish. Now that a peer and I finally submitted our first article and now that I am getting ready to submit another, I am learning about this aspect of publishing.
What I do not understand is this: why would authors support this type of vulture capitalism in the first place? It seems to me that if authors refuse to support these organizations that steal their labor, they could bring these companies to their knees. Perhaps good old collective bargaining might be a solution to the problem? I don't really know; however, clearly something has to change. How can we organize to change? It sounds like a daunting task; however, little acorns into might oaks grow...
Well, in older journals the damage was immediate. You signed over your copyright to the journal to get it published, never thinking money could be made out of it.
Now, the heavy hitting copyright holders are quite happy to threaten legal action, and since you would be in the legal wrong, are you going to risk it. University of Chicago owns the copyright to one of my old articles and refuse to send me a copy! They, and another which owns four of my copyrights, ban author distribution through RG. Are you going to risk it?
RG was pursued by large scientific publishers for allowing copyrighted material on this site without permission. RG blamed the authors for uploading it. But the still constantly encourage members to upload such articles! Are you going to risk it?
American law is particularly harsh on copyright, as most other things. Good luck, should you choose to risk it. I won't.
Christopher NOCK
Christopher Nock : I understand the legalities involved once you sign away your copyrights, and I would not violate such terms. However, I am suggesting that the researcher should do not get in this situation in the first place. If researchers were to collectively decide not to publish in these journals, I think there would be an immediate stop to this practice. However, to take such a drastic step, researchers would have to organize and "speak" as a collective. It makes absolutely no sense to me that a researcher should do all the work, pay for it to be published, then give up the rights to the article to the publisher who makes money from it...I just cannot wrap this around any part of my mind... Researchers must find a way to band together against this injustice.
Well, it's not that difficult! I have explained how we arrived where we are. And, as you suggest, bygones are best left bygones. I would add, I have never paid to be published, nor would I ever consider doing it. Others can do what they want, but personally I regard it a shameful practice.
Withdrawing will not rectify past errors. What we've given up, is gone. Should we want withdraw from all journals from here. Again, I wouldn't. It my be my subject area(s), like some others, but the number of people reading my stuff is hardly enough to buy me rusty third hand car, let alone a house!
I don't have to pay production or distribution costs. I don't have to store back issues. I don't have to establish a network for distribution and collecting fees. All of which are expensive, and far outweigh the minimal income from my effort.
Anyway, you have always had the opportunity to try and publish your work with a commercial publisher. If it's actually going to make big money they'd want it.
Finally, I would want to be involved in an academic led publishing coup. There'd be little agreement on goals, methods, what counted as success....
NOCK
@ Christopher Nock: You said "I would want to be involved in an academic led publishing coup. [Did you mean to say you would not want to be involved...?] There'd be little agreement on goals, methods, what counted as success...." (bold mine). This is true; however, the same was true at the dawn of unionism and collective bargaining.
Fear of the unknown kept many working men and women whose labors were being stolen from organizing...so they kept doing what they were always doing--even as they hated doing it! Change is hard; however, that never stopped determined human beings from facing their Goliaths. I am new to publishing and if such a movement were to arise...I will surely join. (One can dream, right?)
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