Re Scientific publishing is a rip-off. We fund the research – it should be free | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <jonathan.s.shapiro () gmail com>
> Date: September 15, 2018 at 2:56:49 AM GMT+9
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re Scientific publishing is a rip-off. We fund the research – it should be free | George Monbiot | 
> Opinion | The Guardian
>
> Some comments on all this:
>
> 1. Peer review is a sacred cow among academics and industrial researchers principally because publication quality is 
> a key metric for hiring and promotion. Peer review is often, but not universally, associated with paid journals. Good 
> studies have been done comparing paid and non-paid journal article quality. There is some evidence suggesting that 
> the paid journals are not as good, even though they tend to have better reputations. There are, or course, garbage 
> journals in both the paid and non-paid spheres.
>
> There is overwhelming evidence that peer review - even blind peer review - exhibits gross negative bias against women 
> researchers and also against research that does not affirm the prevailing orthodoxy of the relevant research 
> community.
>
> Perhaps surprisingly, there is research suggesting that among high-reputation publications, following an initial 
> filter for "obviously does not meet criteria", random selection yields a better quality journal or conference 
> proceeding than peer review. Review and shepherding remain useful to improve the quality of the selected papers, but 
> not as a means of selection. As I recall, the research comparing peer review to random selection appeared in a peer 
> reviewed publication; make of that what you will.
>
> In short: the entire pyramid scheme that is research review and ranking is in need of re-thinking. The only parties 
> winning under the current system are the suppliers of overhead. What we need is a system for assessing the reputation 
> of a journal that is principally based on the quality of the content rather than to outdated processes and 
> conformance to gender and orthodoxy expectations.
>
> I have no actionable thoughts on how to achieve that.
>
>
> 2. I've recently had a very negative interaction with IEEE in which a law firm acting on behalf of IEEE issued an 
> unlawful take-down of one of my publications on ResearchGate. One of the requirements of a take-down is a legally 
> binding affirmation that you own the document. If you don't, the affirmation is perjury, and the law provides that 
> you are subject to civil action. IEEE used a foreign law firm to do the take-downs, which places civil remedy 
> effectively out of reach to most authors. ResearchGate is not an American company, so it made sense for IEEE to 
> retain a law firm in the same country as ResearchGate. It is possible they did not give thought to how this defeated 
> any hope of effective civil remedy, but it does not seem likely to me that the were unaware that this structure 
> evades the statutory provisions for accountability by making them cost-prohibitive to the authors. Competent counsel 
> would have pointed it out to them.
>
> Because I have always been concerned about paywalling, I have made it a practice during my career to retain rights to 
> my publications. When challenged to produce documentation of their alleged ownership of my works, IEEE failed to do 
> so. If they can't produce that documentation - or worse, in this case, never had it - they are in the very awkward 
> position of having issued an unlawful take-down notice, which gives me a cause of civil action against them should I 
> choose to pursue it. Adding insult to injury in this matter, IEEE did not take any remedial steps following their 
> error, leaving it to me to re-supply the document to ResearchGate that they forced ResearchGate to delete. My time 
> and inconvenience in doing that can only be recovered through a civil suit.
>
> IEEE serves no purpose if its activities do not advance scientific and engineering research and technical progress. 
> Paywalling very clearly impedes such progress while simultaneously raising both the risk and the expense of research 
> and engineering.
>
> The next time you are notified about a document take-down related to an IEEE publication, send a note off to IEEE 
> demanding that they produce proof of assignment. Most of the time it will turn out they can't. If that's true, 
> consider filing a copyright lawsuit against them for using your document without permission. There is no such thing 
> as innocent infringement in matters of copyright, the penalties are steep, and it is long past time that the authors 
> started using the rules and laws available to us to establish a more balanced model of rights in our works. Having 
> filed, settle the matter by requiring IEEE to cover your legal costs, restore all rights in your works, whether or 
> not documented, to the authors, and enter into an agreement to cease and desist in take-downs against all authors. 
> While you're about it, send them a revocation of your assignment grant citing the absence of consideration as 
> providing a basis for revocation at any time.
>
> I believe that DMCA needs to be updated with a substantial minimum statutory penalty for false take-down, such that 
> the civil exposure is the greater of the statutory harm or the actual harm and the cost of civil action as a means of 
> enforcement becomes justified in all cases. Right now, there is no incentive for the party issuing a take-down to 
> exercise appropriate diligence, because all of the consequences of their illegal take-downs are externalized onto the 
> author.
>
>
>
> As an IEEE Senior Member, I'm deeply affronted by IEEE's conduct in this matter. My dues are apparently supporting 
> the suppression of research, which strikes me as a problelm. Within computer science, IEEE's behavior stands in 
> marked contrast to ACM and USENIX, both of which understand that they don't "own" works they do not pay for. This is 
> wrong. We have bowed to it for too long.
>
>
> Jonathan Shapiro, Ph.D.



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