1
00:00:00,740 --> 00:00:05,600
Academics tend to look down at issues of
copyright and ignore their implications.

2
00:00:06,350 --> 00:00:11,372
As a consequence, as a community, they
make mistakes that can prove very costly.

3
00:00:12,210 --> 00:00:16,474
The most obvious example of these mistakes
is with scientific publishing of papers.

4
00:00:17,090 --> 00:00:20,874
Let's look at the submission process 
for a paper in a mathematics journal.

5
00:00:21,750 --> 00:00:25,878
After I write that paper, my submission
will follow the peer review process.

6
00:00:26,430 --> 00:00:30,035
A couple of other mathematicians 
will look at it to give a referee report,

7
00:00:30,345 --> 00:00:34,768
and a journal editor will decide to accept it
or not, based on those reports.

8
00:00:35,790 --> 00:00:40,099
Neither the referees or the journal editor
will be paid very much for this.

9
00:00:41,150 --> 00:00:43,774
If my paper gets accepted, most of the
time,

10
00:00:43,774 --> 00:00:47,010
I have to cede copyright to the journal, 
I have to sign a contract.

11
00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,450
Then the paper gets published, 
university libraries around the world,

12
00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:52,565
including my own,

13
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,744
that of the referees or the editor will
buy a copy of the journal.

14
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:00,930
I can't get it directly to them, 
or all the other universities

15
00:01:00,930 --> 00:01:03,278
because I don't own 
the copyright anymore.

16
00:01:04,259 --> 00:01:06,862
Because of this dominating position 
of publishers

17
00:01:07,262 --> 00:01:11,783
-- the owners of journals -- 
most subscriptions are very expensive

18
00:01:11,783 --> 00:01:15,595
and charge a price that does not reflect 
the value added by the publisher.

19
00:01:16,620 --> 00:01:19,740
In fact, there is little work done 
by the publisher in mathematics.

20
00:01:20,220 --> 00:01:23,870
The state of the paper at the moment of
submission is very close, visually,

21
00:01:23,870 --> 00:01:26,009
to the state at the moment of publication,

22
00:01:26,009 --> 00:01:31,478
because we are already using similar tools
to edit formulas, as book copy editors.

23
00:01:32,630 --> 00:01:36,740
So in the end, the mathematics community
pays publishers a lot of money

24
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:38,734
for buying back their own work.

25
00:01:38,740 --> 00:01:41,617
It's a crazy system, 
but one that has evolved

26
00:01:41,617 --> 00:01:43,677
because academics 
did not pay attention

27
00:01:44,211 --> 00:01:49,090
and let their most prestigious brands, 
the historically most prestigious journals

28
00:01:49,090 --> 00:01:51,982
be bought by big 
publishing companies.

29
00:01:54,222 --> 00:01:58,839
[CC BY-SA
Paul Olivier Dehaye]