Chemistry Central Blog

Wiley/Society of Chemical Industry Threaten Blogger with Legal Action

Oh dear, oh dear! Our stubby blogging fingers couldn't type fast enough when we heard about the heavy-handed treatment of Shelley Batts, a neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. In fact my colleague at PhysMath Central beat me to it. Traditional toll-access publishers, who require authors to sign over copyright for their works, are again hiding behind ridiculous use of copyright law!

Shelley used a figure and a table from an article in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry. What is more, she listed the journal, the article title and details of the authors. Fair use, you might think ... but it wasn't long before she received threats of legal action (you can view these emails in the blog posting. The name and contact details of the Wiley/SCI executive have recently been removed from the email - but I would suggest it is not her fault, but the policy of her employer).

You'd think authors would want maximum exposure for their work, wouldn't you? And, whatever Shelley might have concluded about the research, she was giving it exposure - to those who could access it anyway, I'm not prepared to pay $25 to try.

If this article had been in an open access journal there wouldn't have been a problem. Not only would she have been free to reuse the graphics, but she could also have downloaded and used any associated data files. In fact, if she had wished she could have posted the entire article elsewhere - giving the correct attribution, as she had done in this case. And, all of us reading her blog would be able to read the full-text too ... no access barriers!

The simple fact is this: the blogosphere is kicking and screaming about something that could have easily been handled quietly. After all, Shelley was hardly stopping thousands of pay-per-view downloads and damaging Wiley's profits. Shelley, like other bloggers and blog readers are also prospective authors and reviewers - and while this has certainly tarnished Wiley's own reputation, it has also ignited a debate about traditional publishers locking away data and graphics behind subscription barriers, copyright and fair use.

Sarah Cooney, Director of Publications at SCI commented on a posting to Flags&Lollipops (a Nature Network blog) saying:

Dear all

I am Director of Publications at the Society of Chemical Industry, owner of the journal in question (JSFA), so you can consider me the official reaction to this issue.

There has been a misunderstanding with this issue, inadvertently caused by a junior staff member at our Society. Our official response is below:

"We apologise for any misunderstanding. In this situation the publisher would typically grant permission on request in order to ensure that figures and extracts are properly credited. We do not think there is any need to pursue this matter further."

I have written to Shelley to clarify that this was a general misunderstanding, and she has been happy with my response.

The journal in question is owned by the Society of Chemical Industry. We work in partnership with Wiley to produce our journals.

Sarah

It would be interesting to see if publishers could cope if all bloggers wrote in for permission. In the end, Shelley simply redrew the figures herself!

If you want to view a list of bloggers talking about this, Coturnix is keeping a list. Or try Technorati.

Posted by Bryan Vickery at 17:20    Comments (0)