The Coalition for Responsible Sharing is a group of publishers banding together to address information sharing practices in ResearchGate, an online network platform for scientists and researchers to share, discover, and discuss research.
The coalition released an open letter to the Trump administration actively discouraging the consideration of putting a zero embargo which would allow for the open publication of federally funded research immediately upon completion.
Consider
For this activity, review the Coalition for Responsible Sharing and the open letter (PDF).
Complete this Activity
In the comments below, write a reflection of the documents. Consider:
- What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the intellectual property of content creators?
- What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the advancement of research and knowledge?
- What interests are being served with this type of lobbying and how is it similar or different to your own interests?
Cover Image Credit: Publish by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 ImageCreator
It’s interesting to read about the Coalition for Responsible Sharing’s dispute with ResearchGate as we basically have two private parties involved over a dispute regarding the status of content that neither of them creates, and on both sides of this dispute we have entities that profit off of this content (admittedly, there are non-profits among the Coalition for Responsible Sharing). While the Coalition’s letter to the Trump administration aims to present the group as on the side of scientific and scholarly advancement and innovation, the overall aim of the letter is to defend the status quo within scholarly publishing, and arrangement that is arguably out of date and that slows the advancement of research.
Despite the letter’s gestures towards concerns about the advancement of science, the majority of the document appeals to economic considerations, claiming that the current scholarly publishing system brings billions of dollars into the U.S. economy and helps create businesses and jobs for Americans. Moreover, the document portrays open access policies or mandates as a form nationalization, which fails to note the degree to which research is publicly funded (and thereby the extent to which members of the Coalition are subsidized by public funds). What’s particularly noteworthy about the letter is that (unless I missed it) it makes no mention of the interests of the actual content creators, i.e. researchers and scholars, and instead presents publishers as though the content originates with them.
In my view this form of lobbying impedes scientific progress and reinforces unethical power dynamics whereby scholars must be associated with privileged institutions in order to have access to a significant degree of scholarly materials. But furthermore, this kind of lobbying can serve to distract from efforts to encourage authors to more thoughtfully exercise their intellectual property rights when choosing where to publish and deciding what publication agreements they are willing to sign. It’s likely that a significant number of researchers who share their work on ResearchGate do so without realizing they are violating publication agreements. So by targeting ResearchGate rather than individual researchers, groups like the Coalition are less likely to inspire authors to more deeply scrutinize the publishing system they are a part of, as doing so may lead to changes that would be less beneficial to their bottom lines.
I agree with Ian that this kind of lobbying distracts from educating content creators about their intellectual property rights. In erasing authors from the publishing ecosystem in the way the letter does, the Coalition obscures the fact that authors have a choice in where they publish and that authors can currently choose (if APCs are not a barrier) to make their articles freely available immediately. The letter’s claim that publishing federally funded research is simply “reporting on” this research is also worth noting.
I agree with much of what Ian said above when reviewing the open letter from the Coalition. I found the open letter to utterly ignore the problems with traditional publishing (and solutions for the problems arising from a lack of embargo) and push an economics-only mindset on the topic of intellectual sharing.
The statement that this issue “would jeopardize the intellectual property of American organizations engaged in the creation of high-quality peer-reviewed journals and research articles and would potentially delay the publication of new research results” is an extreme generalization that we know is untrue especially as the existence of open access materials serves to more quickly disseminate knowledge. I also found the Coalitions’ claim that ‘publishers both support and enable “open access” business models and “open data” as important options within a larger framework that assumes critical publisher investments remain viable” to be very interesting. This makes it clear that they do not support open access unless it fits within their already established model of publishing (and grows their profits), regardless of authors’ desire for public access. As for the ResearchGate issue, once again profits are the main consideration, with a lack of thought for researchers’ intellectual property violations.
From my (admittedly biased) point of view, the Coalition is putting on a front of concern for American researchers and intellectual outputs, but their real concern is almost solely economic as they do not address alternatives (such as open access) or venues that authors could get the recognition they deserve. It’s clear to me that both documents serve only the interests of traditional publishers and ignore the desires of the academic authors, institutions, librarians, and the general public who have a growing stake in this industry.
I agree with Ian, Neah and Reba. The Coalition is lobbying for their own (economic) interests, and not the advancement of science of scientific knowledge, nor the interests of scientists or authors themselves. I also thought it was interesting that the academic societies that form part of the coalition do not seem to include any arts or humanities…
It also does not recognize that American publishers also publish work funded by other countries, and written by authors located in other places.
This policy did not view content creators as holders of intellectual property rights. The logical impact from that view is that this kind of lobbying would likely have no impact on the intellectual property of content creators. That Administration had no love for science, fact, truth, or opinions that varied from their whim of the day.
Taken out of the context of that particular administration this kind of lobbying can and routinely does have a great impact on content creators, and the advancement of research and knowledge. The value of that impact depends on whether you are on the profit/power or the cost/impotence receiving end of the effort. I mention this because some prolific content creators that were signatories of this letter routinely situate themselves in the profit/power mode.
The self-evident interests served by this kind of lobbying are clear in both the content of the letter and the signatories. Whoever authored this letter was attempting trumpspeak by using claims that “we already give it away for free” along with leaps of logic like a “risk of reducing exports” and it would “place billions of dollars of burden on taxpayers”. These are simply wordy expressions that mimic the ridiculous and unevidenced rhetoric of the Administration.
This policy impacts all the parties involved in publishing a creation, putting at risk the financial stability of many organizations thus orienting the nature of the business to be government-funded since the revenue from those exports might be reduced.
Fostering OA is a challenging step forward to speed innovation and promote collaboration, it involves a responsible usage of the information that is being created by others and the responsibility of contributing back. High concerns were all around the world with COVID-19 vaccine many individuals and organizations worried about the effectiveness and quality of this new solutions – still on the table for debate, whereas many others are working as a team putting all the resources together to continuing developing it (some American Scientific Institutions agree that is rolling out successfully since the common goal is to have a solution worldwide; this culture/statement shall be part of the research and knowledge, by making it available to everyone, it would reduce the waste of resources and foment the collaboration (being the case that two or more parties are working on the same research – instead of developing knowledge under a competitive environment).
At the end of the road, every single project developed requires funding either coming from the government, private sector or directly from the consumer. The nature of these creations should move towards the goal of creating “BETTER” for everyone and improving the process of it, making it “EASIER” for everyone.
At some point in life, I was frustrated by the negative impact that “Being Profitable” cause on everyone, where our innovation goes towards putting down our competitors and selfishly increasing our assets.
As eloquently put by the responses before my own, the Coalition for Responsible Sharing has clear financially driven motives in its advocacy for limiting information sharing. Its considerations are not for the content creators who produce resources in order to advance knowledge and educations. These authors are only brought up as pawns to comment on the security of American jobs without the consideration that international content creators also contribute greatly to the information sources they are defending. The Coalition frames its lobbying around the potential profits gained or lost rather than the interests of the researchers which demonstrates a disconnect in its priorities as it represents the economics of information sharing rather than the educational motives of its content creators.
This kind of lobbying is as mentioned by all the commentators above does not serve in protecting the intellectual property of content creaters. Since the sole purpose is to contain the knowledge as a property of a particular country the lobbying is likely to slow down the spread of knowledge. Unless data and up-to-date research is readily available the existing problems cannot be solved efficiently. The case of COVID-19 is a good example when the research related to COVID-19 was made free and quickly published a number of related issues and problems were addressed. The pace of research and knowledge was significantly increased.
The interest of such lobbying is mostly economic gains and pushing a nationalism agenda which was the focus of the previous US administration. Since knowledge and research should not benefit a single country but effectively applied to solve global problems these interests need to be re-evaluated. Since I belong to a developing country the lack of resources and access to good quality education and research are problems that are closer to my heart. I would very much like effective interventions to spread knowledge and make information readily available. There are always good economic models that could work for everyone.
Something I noticed in the letter was that the Coalition claims that a zero embargo would lead to “increased financial responsibility on the government through diverted federal research grant funds or additional monies to underwrite the important value added by publishing.” This tells me that the members of this Coalition fully intend to utilize Article Processing Charges if they are unsuccessful. Their intentions, as those above have mentioned, lay solely in profit–even if it means offloading costs to content creators. As well, by saying that a zero embargo would “jeopardize the intellectual property of American organizations engaged in the creation of high-quality peer-reviewed journals and research articles,” the Coalition implies that authors and content creators that do not engage in traditional publishing are of poorer quality and/or do not add value. The devaluing of Open Access works (whether green, gold, platinum, or bronze) may also have an impact on an already fragile public trust in science.
Like many above noted, the context of the letter is almost a bit shocking in how the focus is only on the publishers. The emphasis is indeed only on the publishers and how essentially their “profits” (investments) are used to finance education and research that advances the US economy. I thought that was such a strange and almost dishonest way to approach the dialogue, but I am not surprised. Rather, I think their argument may have been stronger if they say attacked the quality of materials published through having a zero embargo. But essentially it goes to show in any industry lobbying is used as a mechanism to maintain power dynamics and prevent universal benefit. I would for instance be interested in knowing how slashing the embargo could significantly increase research access and dissemination globally to empower and allow for more collaboration. Or what alternative models could be proposed or already exist in forcing publishers to evolve in a more open environment, but I imagine that would cut into their profits which is what they want to clearly protect as noted in the letter.
It is clear that the coalition’s motivations is that they want to protect the status quo (providing the service of editing, distributing information, and attaching the prestige of the journals; while gaining the copyrights of content creators, money from readers and universities/governments). As mentioned in this unit, the market is lucrative and an oligopoly.
I would like to know how the catastrophic consequences as they mentioned in the letter would happen (less investment from those publishers, damage to science and the economy etc.). Given that content creators are very motivated to disseminate their content (so there is a high demand), I doubt those consequences would happen. Alternative business models to meet those needs with a lower cost (aka competition) would just replace these publishers, and they already have in a way (eg open access journals, researchgate). The publishers seem reluctant to adapt their business models to meet the demands of the market. I think they’ll survive researchgate, they’ll just go with the open access model and bill the content creators/funding agencies/government instead.
What I really want to know is why these organizations such as the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association signed it. Is it because of the influence of these publishers?
Regarding the questions:
What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the intellectual property of content creators? The status quo is publishers owning creators’ content, and creators would like a wider dissemination so they go through researchgate. If the lobbying is successful, the status quo is kept and publishers retain power over the creators’ content.
What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the advancement of research and knowledge?
It impedes the advancement of research and knowledge as it stops quicker dissemination.
What interests are being served with this type of lobbying and how is it similar or different to your own interests? The publishers’ interest is for more profits via less dissemination. My interests are to disseminate my research.
The answers to these questions all come down to the fact that this letter is written by lobbyists, and intended for the former President, with the priorities of both reflected in the language used in this letter. The focus of the letter is on the economic implications of this decision, which is typical of the focus of large lobby groups: the letter frequently mentions “American jobs,” America as a leader, “U.S. exports.” The target audience is Trump, who’s campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again,” and supported many actions throughout his presidency that put the interests of American’s, and not those of minority American populations, above all others. I’m looking at using critical discourse analysis as part of my Master’s thesis and the power that the publishers and that government has over this issue is glaringly obvious.
What I find the most striking about the coalition’s website “about” section and the letter, are the ways that individual researchers are cast aside from this discussion, as if this does not involve their own desires/needs/decisions.
From the website: “The CfRS does not take action lightly and its measures are not directed at researchers”, it is researchers themselves who upload works for distribution on ResearchGate.
From the letter: “The role of the publisher is to advance scholarship and innovation, fostering the American leadership in science that drives our economy and global competitiveness.” this differs from most researchers own understandings of what the role of the publisher is/does. Publishers do not advance scholarship and innovation — it is researchers themselves.
Although there is no direct action against researchers, together the actions and words of CfRS are a passive aggressive attack on researchers themselves. Developing a coalition against one of the largest OA platforms for research materials, knowing full well how it functions and the desires of researchers to use it. And, positioning journals as the source of and reason for innovation.
These lobbyist aim to ensure that other modes of research dissemination fail to be able to function and achieve validity, which ultimately serves to preserve their own strong hold over academic research paper market — and profit generation.
Writing in 2023, it’s interesting to see how this case has evolved. It seems like the Coalition is no longer actively lobbying. Their twitter is inactive (https://twitter.com/cfrsharing?lang=en), their most recent website news item is from March 2022 (http://www.responsiblesharing.org/news/) and ResearchGate has signed agreements with major publishers, including DeGruyter (https://www.degruyter.com/publishing/about-us/press/press-releases/researchgate-and-de-gruyter-announce-content-partnership?lang=en), Wiley (https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14293129973649-ResearchGate-and-Wiley-partnership), and Springer Nature (https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14293147809553-ResearchGate-and-Springer-Nature-partnership).
With regards to the specific questions:
What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the intellectual property of content creators?
– It appears that this lobbying hinges on the assumption that content creators are not able to retain their copyright, and instead the publishers are acquiring it (hence them pursuing damages).
What impacts does this kind of lobbying have on the advancement of research and knowledge?
– Building on the above, it seems like this doesn’t allow for researchers to choose how they use their own work. Even though I would advocate for a non-profit repository over the for-profit business model of ResearchGate, it is incredibly problematic that the creators of the work cannot make the results of their work available for larger audiences if they so chose.
What interests are being served with this type of lobbying and how is it similar or different to your own interests?
– The interests of the publishers are clearly being served, which in many cases may not align with my own interests as a member of the public and as a librarian, where I want more access to material that would be appropriate to share openly (i.e. not necessarily Traditional Knowledge).