The paper aims the influence that Alessandro Manzonim had on the drafting of law no. 2215 of 2 April 1865 on the legal regulation of the author’s right, even though the father of I promessi sposi had ...never personally taken part in parliamentary work.
In this letter, we focus on a very curious and bibliometrically important case of a 2017 moth pheromone paper published in Cell Press’
Current Biology
that has already accumulated over 1600 Google ...Scholar-based citations within the past 4 years (i.e., since 2020) to appreciate whether all those citations are valid, i.e., within thematic scope, or whether a portion of those citations might be invalid, and which we colloquially refer to herein as “unwanted citations”. Our investigation assessed Scopus-based data (1088 citations on 10 August 2023). In addition to creating a SciVal thematic profile, which indicated a wide diversity of topics of papers citing the 2017 paper, a manual screen revealed only one paper that was directly thematically relevant to the topic of insect reproductive biology. The remaining > 99% of citations, or “unwanted citations”, are invalid. To reflect a valid state of scientific truthfulness, those papers should be corrected to reflect that citation abuse has taken place.
In response to a letter by Ansorge, who questioned whether authors or science need the right not to want to be cited, we fully respect his opinion and choice to express that he believes that such a ...right is not needed. However, we counter that argument by noting that, even in the absence of concrete examples, to have a solid theoretical basis for arguing a right is essential, even if it is not always welcomed, or appreciated by all, or even many. The ability to have an equal right on any two sides of any argument or situation, including those related to the right to cite a paper, or to not cite a paper, or even to be cited, or to not want to be cited, is a fundamental right that we advocated for in our initial letter, and which we fortify in this follow-up letter.
PurposeAuthorship is the ultimate status of intellectual recognition in academic publishing. Although fairly robust guidelines have already been in place for a considerable amount of time regarding ...authorship criteria and credit, such as those by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors or Contributor Roles Taxonomy, the lack of reliable verification techniques hamper their accuracy, thereby reducing the validity of authorship claims in such statements. This paper aims to focus on the authorship status and responsibilities of co-first authors and co-corresponding authors.Design/methodology/approachTo appreciate authorship responsibilities in this subset of authors, the broader academic authorship literature, as well as position statements, rules and guidelines, were consulted.FindingsAcademic publishing that relies on metrics is a global multi-billion-dollar business, so strict measures to assess and confirm authorship, which can be intellectually or financially “profitable” among academics that game such metrics, are needed. The current assessment is that there are inconsistent rules for equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. In shared and collaborative authorship, there are also shared authorship-related responsibilities, but these are infrequently discussed, or tend to only be dealt with broadly.Originality/valueWithin the wider, and important, discussion about authorship, which is one of the most central issues in academic publishing, there has been a limited focus on equally credited authors such as co-first authors, co-corresponding authors and co-supervisors. This paper expands and fortifies that discussion.
Ghostwriting in medicine represents a highly significant problem in both legal and ethical terms, and particularly in recent years owing to a sudden increase in the practice. The main goal in this ...paper is to present the legal and ethical rules connected with the ghostwriting phenomenon. The problem is presented in the context of international, European and Polish law. From a legal perspective the issues bound up with ghostwriting are those of the notion and authorship of a work, authors' rights (both moral rights and copyright), the content of these rights and their nature, as well as the question of the transfer of such rights. From the point of view of ethics there arises a need for reflection on honesty, accuracy and credibility as defined both generally and scientifically.
Data sharing has come of age. Long expected as a professional courtesy but rarely honored, data sharing is now highlighted in codes of ethics, supported by research communities, required by leading ...funding organizations, and variously encouraged and mandated by journals and even publishers. These developments reveal how sharing generates many benefits, all of which go to the integrity of the scientific process. Yet, sharing remains a complex phenomenon. This Editorial explains the journal’s response to the publisher’s mandate to establish an appropriate data sharing policy for the
Journal of Youth and Adolescence
. It describes the need to balance the benefits of sharing with its costs for authors publishing in multidisciplinary, developmental science journals like this one. For this journal and at this time, that balance leads us to err on the side of caution, which means supporting those who created their data and not coercing public sharing as a condition for publishing. This approach recognizes authors’ reliance on a wide variety of data, the needs of differentially situated authors, the requirements of robust peer review, and the potential harms that can come from editors’ unilateral sharing mandates.
The complexities of transformation of copyrighting in conditions of the intensive use of electronic information and network technologies are considered. Some of the factors that should be taken into ...account when changing copyright laws are discussed and extensive examples of law modifications and new practices in this area around the world are provided. Attention is paid to the introduction into national copyright laws of separate articles on limitations and exceptions to copyrighting in relation to the work of libraries and educational institutions. It is emphasized that the work on transforming copyrighting in the digital age continues, the balance of interests of society and copyright holders has not yet been achieved, and the rapid emergence of new technologies for the exchange and transmission of information poses new problems. The challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic are also having an impact on the current discourse on open access to information and copyrighting in works.
For all of the rhetoric about the central place of authors in the copyright scheme, our copyright laws in fact give them little power and less money. Intermediaries own the copyrights, and are able ...to structure licenses so as to maximise their own revenue while shrinking their pay-outs to authors. Copyright scholars have tended to treat this point superficially, because – as lawyers – we take for granted that copyrights are property; property rights are freely alienable; and the grantee of a property right stands in the shoes of the original holder. I compare the 1710 Statute of Anne, which created statutory copyrights and consolidated them in the hands of publishers and printers, with the 1887 Dawes Act, which served a crucial function in the American divestment of Indian land. I draw from the stories of the two laws the same moral: Constituting something as a freely alienable property right will almost always lead to results mirroring or exacerbating disparities in wealth and bargaining power. The legal dogma surrounding property rights makes it easy for us not to notice.
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