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Prism -- an astroturf organization established by science publishers to discredit free open access journals -- has been caught using a bunch of infringing Getty images on its front page. Prism advocates against open copyright for science journals, preferring to lock up scientific knowledge with a maximal version of copyright that limits scientific endeavor to those parties who can pay rent to the corporations that fund Prism. Like many copyright maximalists, Prism only uses moral arguments about copyright as cover for self-interested greed -- they talk a good line about "respecting copyright," but what they mean is, "pay us and pay us and pay us, and screw everyone else."
Link (via /.)In short, they want to protect science by locking it up under copyright. They want to restrict access to publicly-funded research results by requiring that everyone pay a fee to see it. There are plenty of reasons why PRISM's logic falls apart (see here for a thorough bashing), but I wanted to point out just one: they're hypocritical. While their entire web site advocates strict enforcement of copyright laws, the images they've used on their front page are a violation of copyright law. Take a look at this screenshot from their front page:
Notice how the hairdo of the handsome scientist in the large photo is marred by the "Getty Images" logo? That's a digital water mark that stock photo suppliers use to keep unscrupulous publishers from "borrowing" their images. A quick search of the Getty Images web site locates the identical photo, with the identical watermark.
Clearly PRISM was too cheap, or in too much of a hurry, to bother with copyright (if you look closely at the other two photos, you'll see watermarks on them as well).
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Um, what evidence is there that Getty was not paid for the images? Have you Cory, or anyone at BoingBoing, bothered to contact Prism or Getty? All I see so far is a chain of blog posts based on a series of assumptions presented as facts.
Yes, I've heard that the Getty says to use non-watermarked images once you've paid. All that proves is that someone never bothered to swap images on the site when it went from prototype to production. That may be just as simple as web master laziness. Damning evidence of nothing.
Now that comments are on I'm looking forward to seeing if Cory actually has any facts to back up yet another sensationalist post.
(nweaver@Gmail.com, too lazy to create an account).
Standards really differ among publishers as well.
Usenix is great: You have to give them an exclusize 1 year liscence, but otherwise you keep copyright.
ACM is decent: You transfer your copyright, but their liscencing is "Free for noncommercial/educational use, $5 for commercial use" and you can put it up on your web page.
Springer/Verlag is so-so: They don't argue about the webpage, but there isn't the "Free for noncomercial/education use" clause.
However, I think CS is far better than most of the other fields in this way.
Yay!
"see here for a thorough bashing" - do you mean here, like, BoingBoing? Or should there be a link in that sentence somewhere? :)
Ha ha!
ps - your "(see here for a thorough bashing)" link ain't working.
If you follow the link to this article on Cognitive Daily, you'll see in the comments that once caught, Prism went into Photoshop and edited out the watermarks. These guys are amazing.
I just forwarded this link to someone at Getty. I imagine those photos will all be taken down pretty soon.
It is probably the fault of an outsourced designer and incompetent producer.
The "see here for a thorough bashing" has, indeed, a link in the original article:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_08_19_fosblogarchive.html#365179758119288416
I guess they read BoingBoing (or Slasdot), because they've since replaced the image with a paid one, and added a copyright line beneath it.
Please don't paint all science publishers with the same broad brush. Many top science publications are put out by science societies, or published by not-for-profit research institutions. The funds raised by these publications pays for the actions of these societies which directly benefit scientists working in the field, as well as funding research. Immediate demands for open access will destroy these societies and seriously harm the research institutions. Most are open to finding some sort of compromise that satisfies all parties. While it's nice to think that the community will take over all editorial duties at no charge, I have a hard time believing it. I don't know a single scientist who isn't already overbooked, so adding a full-time editorial job to their busy schedules is just not going to happen for most. All current open access journals are heavily funded with grants, and are in general hemhorraging funds, as this does not seem to be a viable business model. So tearing down the current system with nothing to replace it seems a bit premature to me.
What you're really talking about with PRISM is one or two large publishing conglomerates who dominate the field who are refusing to budge on finding a reasonable compromise. If you want a real scandal, take a look at the recent HHMI decision to pay Elsevier $1000 to $1500 for making their articles open access after 6 months. While this is allegedly to cover Elsevier's "expenses", no other publisher apparently has those same expenses, at least according to the HHMI:
http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v14/n4/full/nsmb0407-251.html
It appears the watermark is gone, but according to a comment on Cognitive Daily they Photoshopped it out instead of paying up. Cognitive Daily discussion at the following URL (tiny-ized so it won't get cut off): http://tinyurl.com/3anv47
P.S. Astroturf is a brilliant way to describe pseudo-grassroots organizations.
Article 27 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
....
Note that in many countries corporations are not considered legal persons quite as they are in the USA.
The rights, as described above, do not imply that you can sell away your fundamental rights. Thus we get the artist who still has a voice in the use of his/her art work years after it is produced, and been sold.
The Science Journals seem to be violating the first right granted in Article 27, and they are not truely the author of the works they print.
I am sure this is worthy of much debate.
Prism? Something that light has to pass through... More like Dark Side of the Moon, which few people ever see!
"There are plenty of reasons why PRISM's logic falls apart (see here for a thorough bashing), but I wanted to point out just one:"
Um, the "see here" isn't a link... what evidence are you referencing?
Add me to the ones who can't see the link discussed above.
I doubt if allowing the original authors to close off access will be an improvement over allowing publishers to close off access.
A few thoughts:
-Perhaps this was simply an error or result of miscommunication, not a malicious attempt to infringe on copyright. Sometimes designers/producers will use the watermarked versions as placeholders before securing the rights to the final photos.
-The commenter above who notes the HHMI/Elsevier arrangement cites an article from Nature, a competitor of Elsevier's, who certainly cannot write about said "scandal" impartially.
-Finally, isn't the author of the original post plagiarizing Cognitive Daily when he quotes their article verbatim without attribution in the body of the post?
Many publicly funded research institutes now have policies which force their researchers into publishing open access. In the UK for example this is true for all research councils in Research Councils UK. Moves like this, will hopefuly put a bit of clout behind the open access movement.
And now Prism's shame has been immortalized in an internet comic:
http://www.itgumbo.com/mumbogumbo/2007/08/hypocrisy_scandals_shock_inter.php
We can all have a schadenfreude-ic laugh at their expense.