Wiley Interscience: Where Science Meets Legal Threats
Shelley Batts over at Retrospectacle was contacted yesterday by a representative of Wiley Interscience, who objected to her fair use of part of one figure from a paper. Shelley has posted the exchange on her blog.
Wiley's legal threats are baseless because fair use allows people "to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism." In addition, this move by Wiley is very stupid given that Shelley was promoting a paper published in one of their journals. She was providing good press for them. But in one stupid move Wiley has turned that good press into bad press.
Because of this I will not be publishing in any Wiley journal for the foreseeable future, and I call on others to do the same.
If you want to email the journal about this, here is the contact information.
Update: Wiley has a record of acting dubiously. (via Afarensis.)
Update: An apology has been issued.
12 Comments
Shelley Batts · 25 April 2007
Thanks so much for your support!!
(Btw, its Shelley not Shirley.) :)
Reed A. Cartwright · 25 April 2007
Fixed. Would you believe me if I said that I call everyone "Shirley"?
minimalist · 25 April 2007
Reed, Shirley you jest.
Henry J · 25 April 2007
Re "(Btw, its Shelley not Shirley.) :)"
Or as Leslie Nielson would say: "Don't call me Shirley!" :D
Robert O'Brien · 25 April 2007
Wiley is puckered at both ends.
Torbjörn Larsson · 25 April 2007
Best analysis and suggestion so far. Kudos to Reed and Shelley for standing up against Ol' Wiley misbehaving.
Moran noted that online publishers like PLOS explicitly allow more than fair use, so I hope online publishing, archives and copyleft gets a deserved boost.
Gary Hurd · 25 April 2007
Hey,
Won't publish
Won't subscribe
Won't even read! (IF I can avoid it)
Gavin Polhemus · 25 April 2007
"Wiley's legal threats..."
Did Wiley make any legal threats? The only correspondence is from an Editorial Assistant Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Is there any reason to believe that anyone at Wiley, especially anyone with knowledge of copyright law, had any knowledge of this.
Lawyers don't spend all their time pressing legal actions. They spend a lot of time explaining to would-be-plaintiffs why their proposed case is baseless. Is it possible that when this Editorial Assistant contacted Wiley to demand action, they would have told her that there was no action to take?
Inoculated Mind · 25 April 2007
Open Access, folks. There's a huge benefit for the promotion of science, besides just getting cited more.
fusilier · 26 April 2007
A sales jock wants me to use a Wiley text for my course - 700 copies/semester. I mentioned this to him. He doesn't think the two publishing arms are at all closely related ([cynicism]of COURSE they aren't[/cynicism]) but just to humor me, he'll be passing my concerns up the line.
Just my two cents.
fusilier
James 2:24
Zen Faulkes · 26 April 2007
For some reason, I am reminded of this from writer Peter David: "If you disagree with someone, say it with words, because saying it with punitive, retaliatory measures proves nothing except that you are petty and intolerant."
Not saying the publisher was in the right here. But is the response advocated (not publishing in their journals, etc.) proportional to the original action?
Gary Hurd · 26 April 2007