Intellectual property

[Keith Hart]

The sharpest and most wide-ranging struggle in global capitalism today is over intellectual property. As a new social form committed to the open principle, the OAC is bound to be drawn into this struggle. Already I have received the following message from László Fosztó:

"I took the initiative of creating a Group 'Anthropology in/of Central Eastern Europe'. As soon as it started to work, I had a question regarding the use of copyrighted material: is there a site policy on that issue? Many of us in CEE do not have access to good libraries and cannot afford to subscribe to expensive journals; so it would help to be able so share articles etc. If open access posting will not be allowed, is there a technical solution to create a “private area” where members would be still able to share materials?"

[Keith Hart]

Are the administrators really deleting comments? Even though we have no formal policy for it whatsoever? Who are these mysterious administrators anyway? I think I saw a comment in another discussion about making it more transparent how Ning is run, so maybe this will get addressed shortly.

I have just posted a comment in the Admins thread of this Forum. To my knowledge the only comment deleted was one of my own by me, for reasons that I have explained in numerous places, and this is a right that everyone has. This thread was opened on June 3rd and it has been averaging over a dozen comments a day, some of them rather captious. I thought it started out rather constructively, for example with Max's judicious summary of the options within the existing structure and elsewhere. But the tone has since changed along with the volume; and this is likely to discourage newcomers from taking part. As for me, I have given up trying to keep abreast of it all. The scale and speed of policies proposed, not to mention the personal attacks (in Auden's terms "academic warriors fighting with smiles and Christian names"), certainly makes this thread less appealing to me. I guess I will take a day out some time to try to digest all the recommendations and share them with the administrators who, if they come up a policy to implement will then refer it to this thread for more discussion...

[Paul Wren]

I formed a guild, and it was MUCH easier!

Owen Wiltshire said:

It's a lot like guild formation/behavior in World of Warcraft actually!

[Hülya Demirdirek]

Hermeneutics (My last contribution to this issue)
Only on the "removal": voices, voice, the singular, the plural, choice of respondents
Paul G.
We just need to remember that the law is on the side of the publishers. We can't "liberate" protected works simply by placing them on an "open" site, nor can we even publicly condone or recommend (on this site) the distribution of copyrighted works through back channels.
Do not assume that this means I am an advocate for publishers and strict copyright rules-- I'm not. But we need to tread carefully on this issue to protect what we are building.

Hülya D.
I may sound paranoid but I think you may consider removing some of the suggestions or people's confessions of what they do from this forum including what I say now. Attending to the needs of colleagues and or group members can be done in very discrete ways.

Fran B.: Paraphrasing:( We can remove the others and keep only Keith's.)

Max.F
No, I'm sorry, I flatly disagree with the above statements about removing all statements except Keith's. I was speaking for myself, and speaking about what I know is done. I was also speaking about options that are legal.

Cosimo Lupo
Wait to throw in the towel! There is not (there must not be) a contradiction between endorsing the open source movement (thus being up to the name of "Open Anthropology") on the one hand, and (formally) respecting the Ning Terms of Use, on the other (thus continuing to exist).

Paul G.
Max, I'm completely with you on fair use and self-archiving-- we need to defend these practices, both at this site and elsewhere. I think to a great extent the above discussion regarding the removal of these discussions themselves and the display of an official policy against copyright violation were a bit of a quick reaction to protect the site in terms of appearances.

Hülya D.
There is difference between putting things into suspension with the fear of being vulnerable to outside effect and starting a dictatorial "clean up" operation.

Philip S.
My advice would be for OAC to conform to the law and to Ning regulations. As for the campaign to advance open access and free exchange, I recommend that new sites be set up for that purpose, manned and womaned by those who advocate this cause.

Max F.
I was reacting to the statement that certain comments should be deleted because they did not meet with the personal approval of some of the admins. -- that is actually more of an example of not wanting the collective discussion possibilities that you mentioned above.

[Francine Barone]

I removed my own post which was in response to Keith's because I felt that it was lingering out of context with the original post removed. This has nothing to do with my status as admin, merely my status a member. My position on this matter in general is that anyone has a right to remove their posts whenever they feel like and for whatever reason.

I have been quiet on this thread because I felt it was getting repetitive and even nasty, rather than informative. I stand by my earlier post and opinion regarding copyrighted material.

I support self-archiving and encourage members to upload their own work, if they choose to, and to make it freely available either here on the OAC or wherever they choose to host it. I think that such behavior is good for anthropology, academia, and the dissemination of human knowledge as a whole. As for Creative Commons, the CC license exists symbiotically with present copyright law. Use it if you want to express clearly what people can do with your work. In my experience, it makes no difference, unless you actually want to hunt people down and sue them. I've had CC license violated on nearly everything I've applied it to. Welcome to the Internet.

I'll repeat here what I said to other admins when this discussion began. As individuals and academics, we should do our best to fight against injustices that restrict the flow of knowledge and information. As admins [or members] of the OAC, we should do our best to preserve the legality and legitimate standing of the site and its members in accordance with both Ning TOS and what we know to be official law.

I believe that academic journals should be made open to everyone, in full text and a variety of formats (i.e. unlocked files that can have the text copy/pasted). I will continue to express this belief and to work towards such a goal within existing laws. I don't believe that one has to violate laws (which, last time I checked, cannot be done with impunity) to have them changed. Perhaps I'm naive, but I'm still young enough to blame it on youth.

With regard to a wiki, a few minutes of Googling has revealed to me that Ning has had plans to incorporate a wiki app to the site for ages, but they never quite get around to releasing it. An external wiki can be linked via a tab to the main page. I may not approve of such file-sharing and hosting on this site, but I am not in a position, nor do I have the desire, to prevent it if the consensus is for an open repository. I feel better about the site being hosted away from Ning, on some other server.

Lastly, "open" to me means not just "free" expression, but respectful expression; listening without condemning; disagreeing without condescending or demeaning other members.

Fran


Maximilian Forte said:

Alright, so then Philip agrees with deleting comments so that one can tailor a discussion after the fact, making it resemble more of what one would personally hope for. That, and putting words in people's mouths, is what Philip calls "open." Stand by it.

[Eliza Jane Darling]

I think we're arguing on at least two different levels here. The conversation started out as a pragmatic question about policy (i.e., file sharing) and quickly evolved - as it logically would - into a more fundamental discussion about Open Anthropology and what it means. That in turn revealed deep-seated differences in political attitudes toward property, inequality, freedom, production and social change, which I think are leading back dialectically to the pragmatic implications of an OA, and so on.

The policy questions are significant but I don't think they can be tackled productively outside the context of a broader political discussion about the meaning of an Open Anthropology. I don't think we should shy away from that discussion, partly because I personally relish it, but also because I suspect the end result otherwise will be one side or another (if there are "sides" in our little guild) deciding to bugger off to friendlier climes, and the compulsion to consensus will result in closure-via-fragmentation rather than anything approximating openness.

To wit, I propose we open a new conversation someplace else on OAC, effectively leaving this thread and this group to the technicalities of enacting policy (along the lines of the conversation with which thread opened). I jotted a few notes down on the train home, so I'd propose something like this:

Open Anthropology: Reform, Resistance, Revolution (a bit grand, I know)

The project of an Open Anthropology presumes there is something "closed" about anthropology in its current incarnation. Members have already begun to engage in a lively and contentious exchange about what the problem is and what should be done about it, some championing more radical potentialities, some advocating a more cautious approach, some biding their time in consideration. The debate necessarily entails a frank discussion about what makes anthropology "un-open" in the first place, what form of change would open it up, what actions should be taken to accomplish this, and what risks individuals and groups are willing to incur in the process.

Then we could open it up with a question, such as, "What's closed about anthropology?" or some such. I don't know where to put it, maybe we should start a World of Warcraft group.

Any takers?

[Philip Carl SALZMAN]

I had hoped we were done with this, but apparently not. It has now been asserted that Philip agrees with deleting comments so that one can tailor a discussion after the fact, making it resemble more of what one would personally hope for. That, and putting words in people's mouths, is what Philip calls "open." I would like the statement where I advocate or agree with deleting comments indicated. In fact, I have not expressed an opinion on this point. So we see who is "putting words in people's mouths."
As an individual who spent ten years of his life distributing an academic journal free, all around the world (see description above), I am disappointed that individuals who say they are devoted to "open" anthropology are asserting that I oppose it. Yes, there are issues of disagreement, both theoretical and practical, such as whether property rights should be respected, and, if so, whether for moral or practical reasons, and so on. But wouldn't it be wise not to make the good the enemy of the ideal?

[Keith Hart]

I am glad you brought up books that bear on the issue, Owen. I had something to do with the writing of Thomas Eriksen's terrific book and I think his argument is spot on. This touches on a question that I haven't seen raised in the OAC yet, but it is especially important given the geographical spread of our membership. In my view anthropology is decadent in the three main imperial centres that were once its main source, America, Britain and France. At the same time many national anthropologies have slipped dependence on those centres, so that lively innovation is now to be found elsewhere. I would single out Scandinavia and Brazil in evidence for this claim. But some of the countries of the Old British empire surely qualify too: Australia, South Africa, Canada and India. So this is another sense in which anthropology is becoming more 'open'.

Bretell's book also deals directly with a topic that interests me greatly. I have an essay, Malinowski's heirs, commissioned for the project that Timm Lau has raised in the Theory group (on evidence), which touches on this issue and quite a few others. I wrote it as a sort of confession.

Thanks too for reminding us of the Wallerstein collection.

Owen Wiltshire said:

Some great books I've been reading related to what makes anthropology "closed" are:
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Engaging Anthropology. http://books.google.ca/books?id=D1bz9Oui1HMC&dq=eriksen+engagin...
Caroline B. Brettell, When They Read What We Write.
http://www.amazon.com/When-They-Read-What-Write/dp/0897894928

Also Wallerstein et al. "Open the Social Sciences"
http://books.google.ca/books?id=RPEIZjvMK94C&pg=PT1&lpg=PT1...

[Francine Barone]

I haven't read any of these, but they're now on my mile-long list of things to read since joining the OAC.

Anthropology as a discipline becoming more widespread throughout different countries is an interesting point. I enjoy exploring multicultural, European cities anthropologically, and it happens that they tend to have universities and social sciences departments, including anthropology. I sometimes find that a handful of people are aware of what anthropology is or at least have some National Geographic-inspired idea. That opens up a reflexive element within the fieldwork process itself, where my methods and background become a discussion point among participants in my research. I actually enjoy it more with that kind of enhanced dialogue.

I think that part of what could potentially close off anthropology is a lack of public understanding as to what it is and what it can or should be "used for". When the word is thrown around in the press with terms like Human Terrain, that becomes the only context it embodies in the public light. One of the reasons I was excited about the formation of the OAC was the potential for non-anthropologists to join and learn more about what anthropology really is by those who practice it.