The ALPSP and STM have issued a joint statement in support of free online access to scientific data (June 2006). Excerpt:
Publishers recognise that in many disciplines data itself, in various forms,
is now a key output of research. Data searching and mining tools permit
increasingly sophisticated use of raw data. Of course, journal articles
provide one ‘view’ of the significance and interpretation of that data – and
conference presentations and informal exchanges may provide other
‘views’ – but data itself is an increasingly important community resource.
Science is best advanced by allowing as many scientists as possible to
have access to as much prior data as possible; this avoids costly
repetition of work, and allows creative new integration and reworking of
existing data....
We believe that, as a general principle, data sets, the raw data outputs of
research, and sets or sub-sets of that data which are submitted with a
paper to a journal, should wherever possible be made freely accessible to
other scholars. We believe that the best practice for scholarly journal
publishers is to separate supporting data from the article itself, and not to
require any transfer of or ownership in such data or data sets as a
condition of publication of the article in question. Further, we believe that
when articles are published that have associated data files, it would be
highly desirable, whenever feasible, to provide free access to that data,
immediately or shortly after publication, whether the data is hosted on the
publisher’s own site or elsewhere (even when the article itself is published
under a business model which does not make it immediately free to all)....
None of this means, however, that databases themselves – collections of
data specifically organised and presented, often at considerable cost, for
the ease of viewing, retrieval and analysis – do not merit intellectual
property protection, under copyright or database protection principles....There is sometimes confusion about whether the use of individual ‘facts’
and data points extracted from a database is permitted under law. Facts
themselves are not copyrightable, but only the way in which information is
expressed – this is fundamental in copyright law. In the EU, the use of
‘insubstantial’ parts of a database, provided it is not systematic and
repeated, does not infringe the database maker’s rights.
Comments. Three quick responses.
First, I commend ALPSP and STM for the primary recommendation in this significant statement. Open access to data is important for all the reasons they cite.
Their call for intellectual property protection for databases is a separable and regrettable part of their statement. The EU has such protection but the US does not. Any argument that such protection is needed to stimulate the production, collection, or dissemination of data is refuted by the vigor of science in the US.
The ALPSP and STM both lobby against policies that would provide OA to research literature, like FRPAA and the draft RCUK policy. I acknowledge that there are many differences between OA to data and OA to peer-reviewed articles interpreting or analyzing data. But ALPSP and STM should acknowledge that there are many similarities, and that most of their arguments for OA data (enhancing research productivity, avoiding costly repetition of research, supporting the creative integration and reworking of research) also apply to OA literature.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/19/2006 09:48:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
