Lessig on Academic Publishing
Academic publishing is an interesting racket. An academic, probably paid by government grants, writes a paper. They submit this paper to various venues, in the hopes of getting it published. The people who review the paper are volunteers, paid in prestige. The paper is then put into a volume costing gobs of money, which goes to the owners of the presses, and ensures that the article is available in libraries and archives.
Larry Lessig has just announced that he will no longer transfer copyright to any publication venue that doesn’t allow at least a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
It’s a great stance, and I’m going to give serious consideration to making the same a condition of my participation in program committees. I don’t have nearly Larry’s prestige, but I think it’s a fine baseline to take.
Lessig says ‘never again’ to copyright demons
In a slightly related development reported by Adam, doyen of the anti-copyright revolution, Lawrence Lessig has said he won’t distribute his work any more unless under a decent sharing licence. Hear hear! I would like to do the same; and…