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Publishing Diverges from Academia's Research Ideology

While the academy's research models parallel the Open Source model in significant ways, they do not share the freedom of the GPL (GNU's Public License that guarantees users the right to copy and distribute programs). Instead, most academic publishers subscribe to a proprietary model of intellectual property, asserting restrictive copyright on their publications. Charlie Lowe describes the conflict between the desires of academic authors and policies of academic publishers:

Scholars object to the hold that the publishing industry has on the intellectual property produced by their scholarship, and they fear the ever-tightening restrictions created by corporate-sponsored extensions of US copyright law. They believe that scholarship can be copyrighted and published, but it should be given back to the public to promote a freer exchange of information for research and educational needs. (2001)
First, as with proprietary software, nearly all print publications are released under traditional copyright, which requires written permission and/or fees for scholars wishing to reproduce such work. Such practices make some texts difficult to obtain or to teach. The last decadeÃs constricting intellectual property laws make things even more difficult, upholding "academic fair use" but providing no protection for scholars exercising the clause—for example, though the clause suggests that small portions of texts may be reproduced for academic critical use, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to create such excerpts by circumventing copy-protection on electronic media.

Second, the exorbitant cost of print publication also restricts the amount of information being published. Academic research that finds a publisher often receives tiny print runs or, in the case of journals, prohibitively high cover prices, ensuring that only libraries will buy the printed materials. Many worry that these two factors seriously jeopardize the project of academic research in the coming years (EFF, 2003).

These restrictive practices stand in direct contrast to the goals of most academic research. While credit certainly plays a part in one's desire to publish, that credit does not often result in direct financial reimbursement at any substantial level. Instead, the credit for academic work comes from acclaim within the community—the reputation that gift cultures rely on. Academic institutions reward this acclaim with higher pay, more time for research, and so on. However, these rewards depend not on how much money the researcher's publications make, but on the acclaim they receive. Thus, the financial rewards for high-quality research are separate from the financial structures prohibiting wide distribution of academic research; the financial restraints placed on academic publications (again, necessary to publisher survival) oppose many scholarly goals.

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