A few days ago Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle reviewed a paper about treating fruit with natural volatile compounds to make it last longer. She included a figure and chart from the paper (the source was cited).
An editorial assistant at the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture – where the paper was published – threatened her with legal action unless she removed the images immediately. You can see how the blogosphere reacted here.
Shelley’s post pointed out that much of the widespread MSM coverage that the paper received had overstated the results. She wasn’t toeing the line. Somebody at the journal threatened to sue her. To some this means that there’s an evil conspiracy at work:
But her article doesn’t fit the spin that the authors/publishers wanted to put on it. So they resorted to legal threats to try to shut her down – Good Math, Bad Math
This was nothing more than intentional intimidation by a large, wealthy corporation against a lone blogger who’s a graduate student and thus unlikely to have the resources to fight back – Orac Knows
I am appalled at the heavyhanded tactics Wiley has decided to use against fellow ScienceBlogger Shelley at Retrospectacle [..] what makes it particularly heinous is the fact that Wiley is in the business of spreading scientific knowledge. – Afarensis
If there’s one lesson to be learned from this debacle (which has aroused the ire of scientists around the world), it’s this: don’t submit your papers to the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, because they will harass and intimidate people who try to do public scholarship with your work – Boing Boing
Whatever their motives, this is a thuggish, cowardly act. They’re supposed to be helping scientists disseminate their findings. They should have been happy about the small bit of publicity Shelley sent their way. – EvolutionBlog
Wiley come into it because they publish journals for SCI, who produce JSFA.
While I agree that the journal is in the wrong I think these comments are all a bit harsh. If it was a matter of policy at SCI or Wiley to crack down on mouthy bloggers then sure, a blog pile-on like this is appropriate.
The fact is, though, the whole thing is most probably down to an editorial assistant in London doing her job a bit too eagerly. Maybe it was six thirty, she’s had a tough day, figures that it’s better to err on the side of caution and send Shelly the stock ‘stop infringing our copyright’ email.
Her name and email address are out there now. She’s inevitably going to get reams of hate mail from freedom of information loving BoingBoingers who assume that there’s an evil corporate conspiracy at work. Imagine looking for a new job when anybody who searches for your name in Google sees pages calling you thuggish and cowardly.
This doesn’t seem like a fair and reasoned response. What happened to writing letters to the editor? Why the near instant transformation into braying mob?
Shame on the journal for sending bloggers threating letters, but shame on the science blogosphere for making it personal, too.
Update: as Sarah mentioned below the issue has now been resolved
Good post, Euan.
About half of it was cut-and-pasted from other sources. Careful you don’t get sued. ;-)
It was really a poor decision on the editor’s part. You are right that some of the comments are exaggerated and even Shelley as tried to tone down a bit the reaction on a new blog post. The publisher could at least react. I know that someone at Wiley is aware of this since I got a visitor in my blog from their domain just a couple of minutes after posting about it (from a Google blog search). It would take a simple email from them to diffuse this considerably.
Dear all
I am Director of Publications at the Society of Chemical Industry, owner of the journal in question (JSFA), so you can consider me the official reaction to this issue.
There has been a misunderstanding with this issue, inadvertently caused by a junior staff member at our Society. Our official response is below:
“We apologise for any misunderstanding. In this situation the publisher would typically grant permission on request in order to ensure that figures and extracts are properly credited. We do not think there is any need to pursue this matter further.”
I have written to Shelley to clarify that this was a general misunderstanding, and she has been happy with my response.
The journal in question is owned by the Society of Chemical Industry. We work in partnership with Wiley to produce our journals.
Sarah
i’m one of the sciencebloggers who backed shelley
1) yes, there was overreaction
2) i’ve removed the editor’s information
3) i don’t regret putting it out there. shelley was threatened with legal action with someone who spoke with the voice of a large corporation. the fact is that there are many ‘little people’ out there wielding large corporate sticks, that’s the nature of our world where we delegate powers. shelley is a graduate student trying to finish her p.h.d., do the math, even if the chances of being sued are very low they would be a DISASTER for her. i’m sorry that the low level editor has received nasty email. but you know, most of us don’t work for large corporations where we can ask for legal back up. even getting legal advice costs a lot of money in the united states, money that graduate students don’t have.
4) so yes, it is important to note that some people did overreact. but, please don’t forget to put yourselves in shelley’s shoes, and find an email in your inbox from an organization which seems to be backed by a large corporation threatening legal action. and imagine that you don’t have much money or support behind you to cushion any mistakes you make.
5) finally, we should all respect rule of law. but those who wield a legal stick should do so cautiously and prudently, because even its whisper does have significant ramifications.
finally, also don’t forget the bigger context in regards to intellectual property rights and young people at universities. kids have been expelled and fined significant amounts due to copyright violations. even the whiff of that is pretty terrifying.
Hey Pedro. Yeah, true – ideally there would’ve been a quicker response from the journal.
Razib – good point about publishing staff at least having legal backing and of course you’re right about not forgetting to see things from Shelley’s point of view.
I guess the point I was trying to make – without defending Wiley – is… editors are (fallible) people too.
Except at Nature, of course.
Thanks for commenting, Sarah.
Have to say for the record, though, that IMHO* SCI’s official reaction is, uh, weak at best.
You’re at least sending Shelley a muffin basket or something, right? Not an apologetic muffin basket, a legally safe blog appreciation basket…
Yeah, I want my muffin basket.
This is the first I’ve heard of this kerfuffle. Sounds like Shelley had a pretty scary time.
Having looked over several of the blogs, and read above, there’s two things that’s interesting to me (and probably me alone).
(NB: I don’t work in journal publishing, so my characterisation and understanding of ‘old’ and ‘new’ might be coloured by the blog posts I’ve read.)
As is probably clear by now, there was never any conspiracy. I thought the mob thing was a preserve of the tech blogosphere :). Hopefully we’ll all learn from this experience. That said, what this episide demonstrates is the inability of publishers to understand their role in this new era. People use images from papers in powerpoint presentations at conferences all the time. Using an image or two to discuss science (somethat that should be discussed in public) is a good thing, and a blog is just another means of communication. It is as if one can always be a conference and have a discussion with your peers.