In a number of cases, however, courts have held that the actions of the network “to publish the works in question and to allow downloading by the users of the network” do not fall within the scope of application of the statutory authorization for publication in the press under the relevant judicial interpretation。
It was also suggested that author authorization had been obtained through cooperation agreements with periodicals, and that the contribution guide often contained “authors' contributions authorizing the journal to have rights over them”。
According to a number of judgements, the journal contribution guide is usually expressed as the author's contribution to the journal, which authorizes the journal to have the right to publish, publish, reproduce and distribute copies. The periodicals have the right to disseminate their contributions digitally, either by themselves or by commissioning third parties. Once the manuscript has been adopted, it is paid as a lump sum against the royalties. If the author does not agree with the above authorization, he or she will be required to include an explanation in his or her contribution。
With respect to such form clauses, the court considered that the conclusion that the author's authorization was directly justifiable. Since the guide only informs that the work is entered into the database, it does not specify how the work is used in the database. Accordingly, the court found that a similar guide did not have the necessary elements to permit the establishment and validity of a contract。
While the authorization of periodicals can still be resolved by a clear written agreement between the editorial department and the author, the process of authorizing knowledge of a large number of well-documented papers on the web remains cloudy。
Nandu journalists questioned a number of highly experienced graduates on this issue, one of whom stated that it was an option to use a power of attorney for a degree paper and to include it in a database. “everyone has chosen, but not much at that time.”
The vague mandate is backed by a strong market control capability. Scholars often have to counter pressure from informed networks in order to prevent their articles from being completely dropped and “no one is found”. Therefore, while knowing that the articles are being used for profit, they do not dare easily to provoke a contradiction, because “published” and “detected” are always first。
The network works with periodicals and pays for downloads
As for the draft, none of the respondents indicated that they had received it. On the internet, nandu journalists found a copy of a “dictionary notice for degree papers” issued in october 2016, indicating that the author had to send a degree certificate, identity card, application form, etc. To a designated mailbox in order to receive the corresponding remuneration。
The author of the doctoral thesis published after 2008 received $100 in cash and $400 in a universal internet search card, while the author of the master's thesis received $60 and $300 in cards. It was published before 2008 and received lower remuneration。
Through the authors of the journal contributions, nandu journalists randomly selected the contribution guide to the metals journal, rocks journal, petroleum journal, and found that some of the journals committed to a one-time payment of royalties. At the same time, the author may have to pay a range of costs for his or her contribution, such as publication and revision costs。
In an interview with nandu, the editor of a core scientific journal in the country said that the cost of the article was almost equal to the cost of a page, the more the author wrote and the more he paid. However, depending on the author's influence, “we may not charge a copy of the article, but we will pay more”
Once the articles have been made available, the proceeds of their dissemination are divided proportionately between periodicals and knowledge networks. For example, the split between zhang dynasty's publications and icrin is 2:8, half-yearly. All articles were uploaded and the internet returned 20 per cent of the benefits by download。
The editor (alias) of another national academic journal, liu goo, also confirmed to southern journalists that both the journal and icrin now work together in a packaged fashion to regularly calculate a total amount based on data such as downloads. She states, however, that it is not clear whether these profits were returned to the author, “[data] may not have been detailed to the author's individual or individual work”
Public information indicates that the network belongs to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the listed company, companion s. A. According to the 2021st annual report of the enterprise, the corporate business income of the co-knowledge network is approximately $496 million, and the net assets at the end of the period attributed to the shareholders of the parent company are about $1. 681 billion, with a maori ratio of 51. 3 per cent。
In this case, due to the author's passive position in the publication of the work, there is a rare phenomenon in which copyright holders do not receive too much in the subsequent process of marketing, except for the remuneration of their works。
Is that logical? The deputy professor and doctor of law, chen mingtao of beijing foreign language university, who has been involved on several occasions in the network proceedings, has in the media reports stated that the network pays the corresponding authorization fee based on downloads of works, ignoring the important premise that, for the database, the value is the volume and comprehensiveness of the data that the buyer is willing to pay. It is therefore not possible to determine the market value by downloading alone, and ultimately the issue of reasonable pricing。
There's an exclusive authorization model
The zhang dynasty recalled that there had been a number of shifts in the pattern of cooperation between its periodicals and the san. Previously, only after the release of a paper version of the journal was made available to the network, the exclusive collaboration of the journal and the network now includes pre-published articles。
Owing to the limited availability of paper publications, entry articles often take a long “queuing” to be published. Some authors would like the articles to be published as soon as possible, either because of the need to graduate, to rank or to make new breakthroughs in research. Through collaboration with the network, articles can be pre-published online upon admission and receive the corresponding doi. The doi is equivalent to the identity card for each article and is recognized by most institutions。
The transformation of the cooperation model actually represents an increase in the voice of one party. According to zhang dynasty, based on the existing authority of the knowledge network, it is equally recognized for authors in the knowledge network. The pre-publishing model further counters the influence of the network, “even writers are keen to go online and they may not vote if they know we can't go online.”
The most immediate driving force of change is the collaboration of networks and institutions. According to 2020 data, the network includes 27,000 institutions, covering 76 per cent of the top 500 universities in the world. The network currently has 8540 academic journals in chinese, including 2230 publications。
Both practitioners indicated that the choice of collaboration with the network was more user-friendly than the promotion of periodicals. Since the major audience for periodicals is concentrated in institutions such as universities, most readers are able to access internet accounts through institutions。
Zhang added that cooperation with other academic databases had not been taken into account, but that, owing to the penetration advantage of the knowledge network in periodicals, and the requirement of a “two-or-one” element of the contract, it had ultimately been decided to give the knownet exclusive authorization。
Nandu journalists have learned that unlike foreign databases, which are built around their own periodicals, domestic database operators have been competing for academic publishing resources from the outset. The “exclusive authorization” boom has so far generated over 1,000 unique periodicals, many of them in similar databases, such as the one-size-fits-all whip。
But as more and more journals plan to develop overseas, it is becoming necessary to take the initiative back from the knownet. “we create free downloads of articles from our own website, so the network requests time lags. In january, for example, we may have arranged for articles to be published in paper form in june and then posted on the journal's website, to some extent affecting outreach.”
This is because the international academic community is not familiar with or accustomed to the use of knowledge networks. If the pre-publication agreement with the network does not allow the editorial office to send the english version in time, there is a strong risk that the author will be motivated to contribute. To that end, zhang xian’s publications offered to reduce the share of proceeds by 20 percentage points in exchange for a shorter lag。
The english-language version of the website is not very friendly to overseas users and many internationalized journals have chosen to dominate their own websites。
The database price rises too fast to trigger a monopoly dispute
On the one hand, the exclusive resources of the core periodicals are being seized, on the other hand, the growing influence of the users of the institution is being built up, and the two advantages have a strong binding effect. Core periodicals are not able to collaborate with icrin in order to target the main user groups, and institutional users are similarly unable to abandon the largest academic database in the chinese language. The network has been able to “lead” for a long period of time in terms of the type of journal, the number of quotations, the size of the user, etc., which inevitably leads to a “monopoly” dispute。
Among the widespread problems are the unreasonable price increases in the database. Beijing university, wuhan polytechnic university, nanjing teacher training university, etc. Have all announced suspensions because of the rapid increase in prices. The wuhan polytechnic university presented a set of data, and the offer to the university by the network has increased by more than 10 per cent annually since 2000 and by 132. 86 per cent between 2010 and 2016。
In the procurement of similar databases, the isp also obtains better prices in terms of volume of data. Nandu journalists were able to access the chinese government procurement network (pcn) and found that, in 2022, the ucpn database cost 720,000 yuan, while the data for 10,000 would require 130,000 yuan and the superstar discovery system and superstar reading show knowledge base totalled 230,000 yuan。
Article 17 of the current antimonopoly act prohibits the abuse of market dominance by dominant market operators, including the sale of goods at unfair high prices, the purchase of goods at unfair low prices or the imposition of unreasonable conditions on transactions。
In an interview with the media, wang cheon lin, a special professor at shanghai university of transport and a member of the expert advisory group of the antimonopoly committee of the state council, stated that sufficient evidence was needed to prove the dominant market position of the network. Pricing issues that received the most attention could be based on horizontal vertical comparisons, cost analysis, etc. For example, whether the increase is significantly higher than that of a similar product, whether the price is raised above normal range in the case of cost stability, and whether a continuous increase is necessary for normal operations and for achieving normal benefits。
Outside the country, “monopoly” disputes in academic databases are no longer news. The leading academic publisher, elsevier, and the flagship database sciencedirect, have been experiencing successive academic boycotts since the late 1990s。
Unlike kevlar, apart from having a large database, ezewire is itself a well-known publisher with authoritative publications in the natural sciences such as the lancet " quadrilateral " . The overline and offline package model increases its bargaining power indefinitely。
This is mainly reflected in the soaring prices of periodicals and databases and the fact that many libraries have had to reduce the number of subscriptions, which has led to the “research crisis”. Ethel has also forced users to purchase unwanted databases through tied sales, and has been dissatisfied by harvard university, massachusetts institute of technology, new york state university, university of california, etc。
In a joint public letter issued in 2010, 33 libraries, including the chinese national library, the national centre for scientific and technological books and the beijing university library, also revealed that international academic publishers have been paying high prices and that individual publishers, using their monopoly status, have proposed to raise the average cost of chinese users using their databases to the level of developed countries in europe and america by 2020。
The years of accumulated discontent eventually led to a dramatic boycott. At the initiative of british mathematician william timothy gouls, nearly 20,000 scholars gathered on a website called “the cost of knowledge” to ask for a clear line from eister: not to publish papers in the group's journals, not to accept work outside the relevant papers。
Returning to the purpose of paying for knowledge
The knowledge network, which was established in 1999, was initially part of the china knowledge infrastructure project, initiated by the university of tsinghua and supported by national ministries such as the ministry of education, the ministry of science and technology and the copyright authority. The project aims to achieve shared and value-added use of knowledge resources across society and aims to build knowledge dissemination and digital learning platforms with international leadership。
Today's knowledge networks are deeply challenged by the privatization of knowledge through monopolies. The purpose of paid downloads, which were intended to protect intellectual property rights, is now a sword against copyright holders, blocking the dissemination of knowledge. This is reminiscent of the original purpose of the network and attempts to find ways to achieve an effective balance of interests between authors, platforms and the public。
The concept of “open access” was first introduced in the budapest open access initiative, published in december 2001. Under open access, readers are able to read, download, copy and print articles free of charge, without restrictions other than those imposed by network conditions. The publisher will convert the reader-end fee into the author-end fee, and the author or the agency to which he or she is assigned will pay for the processing of articles to cover publication costs。
In fact, a number of academic studies, both within and outside the country, are supported by schools or institutions, and even publication requirements are covered by reimbursement. Open access can be promoted by the international academic community and, in effect, is more inherently rational than being paid for by the reader by giving free feedback to society on the results of research supported by public funds。
After a series of accusations, ethel also placed great emphasis on open access. According to the official network, over 500 of some 2,600 periodicals support full open access。
Etheville and the u. S. University of california have been negotiating for almost three years, and have also ended with the signing of the oa agreement. During the term of the agreement, all the papers published by the u. S. University of california in the asterix journal supported open access. At the same time, the library of the school is no longer required to pay for subscriptions to esver. It is understood that this is the ninth oa publishing agreement signed by the university of california, which means that nearly one third of the academic output of the university will be published in oa form。
In this context, the pilot version of the cnki open access integrated platform (coaa), operated by the network, was launched in 2019 and currently has over 10,000 open-access periodicals。
In addition to open access, there has been a voice to include academic resources in government purchases。
During the two sessions in 2020, ncpc, deputy director of the shanghai city education council, made a proposal to include the reading and downloading of icn's papers in the scope of government purchase services. In the absence of free access for the time being, ninjiang suggested setting a time limit for the use of knowledge and opening full-text after a certain period of time。
In fact, as early as 2013, the national academic journal of philosophy and social sciences, a database built by the research and data information centre of the chinese academy of social sciences, was officially launched and used free of charge。
As a result, a consensus became clear that knowledge should not become more expensive in times of growing technological development。
In fact, many interviewees, including professor zhao, wished to convey a voice that the platform could communicate as content and that its contribution to academic exchanges could not be exhausted. But it is time to reflect on whether excessive commercialization impedes access to knowledge。
