I made a background image for this post today to make a point in relation to The Devil Is in the Details. When publishers and authors exercise what they see as a right of content owners to specifically prescribe how readers may use a text in ways that inhibit fair use, they forget about the one major right of readers, one that is increasingly being emphasized within the open access movement. For example, the open letter from PLoS states,

To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September 2001, we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally subscribe to only those scholarly and scientific journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free distribution rights to any and all original research reports that they have published, through PubMed Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months of their initial publication date.

Meanwhile, faculty senates are voting to drop database publication supplier Elsevier. Consider this quote from a resolution passed by Indiana University Bloomington Faculty Council :

Faculty and staff may wish to separate themselves from publishers whose business practices do not support open access. This could be done by withholding publications from their journals or choosing not to sit on their editorial boards. (qtd in Open Access News)

These instances represent what should be an alarming trend to those that would perpetuate the imbalance between authorial rights and the interest of the public: that readers may begin to exercise their right not to read and encourage others to do the same by boycotting research which chooses ownership over sharing. While this may seem a little extreme, consider the open source movement where anti-Microsoft supporters will adamantly protest any use of Microsoft products. Readers, reviewing an article, could as easily elect to include the message that my background represents as easily as authors who choose to plaster "do not copy" all over the place.

Note: I think I may use that background image again with blog posts to denote rather totalitarian IP practices :)