BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20251016T022903EDT-0055nBadfK@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20251016T062903Z DESCRIPTION:Join us for a CIPP/Lallemand Seminar with Professor Roberto Cas o\, co-director of Trento University's LawTech Group.\n\nAbstract\n\nCopyr ight on academic and scientific publications (papers\, articles\, essays\, books etc.) is the result of the interaction between formal rules (copyri ght law)\, social norms (norms of science) and technology (printing press\ , digital technologies).\n\nPrior to the digital age\, academic copyright has had two main functions.\n\na) Priority. The acknowledgment of a patern ity (or attribution) right on the scientific publication has facilitated t he certification of priority of the scientific discovery described in the text.\n\nb) Dissemination. The protection of economic rights (reproduction \, distribution etc.) has enabled the alliance between scientific authors and publishers finalized to distribute scientific publications to the publ ic. Usually\, scientific authors transfer their economic rights to the pub lisher because the latter has the economic and technological power to diss eminate scientific publications. Nevertheless\, scientific authors are mos tly interested in reputation and not in the economic return derived from t he commercialization of copyright.\n\nAccording to Robert Merton’s theory\ , the norms of science are Communism\, Universalism\, Disinterestedness\, and Organized Skepticism (CUDOS).\n\nScientists compete for  priority but they put their ideas and information in the public domain. The ultimate sc ope is to share ideas and information because the progress of science depe nds on “communism” and “organized skepticism”. In other terms\, scientific publications are part of the public and critical dialogue. In this perspe ctive\, formal law and social norms\, normally stating that the original o wnership of copyright belongs to the authors and not to their academic or scientific institutions\, mirror freedom of speech and academic liberty.\n \nThe current scenario however seems completely different. In theory\, Int ernet represents an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen the scientific debate. But reality tells a very different story. In the digital age\, sc ientific publications are only “products”. The changing nature of scientif ic publications is the effect of the commodification of academic research. While the interaction between commodification of academic research and un iversity patents has been deeply investigated and discussed\, scholars hav e paid relatively little attention to the commodification of academic copy right.\n\nIn the market of scientific publications\, bibliometrics and dig itization distort the two functions (priority and dissemination) of academ ic copyright.\n\nOn the one hand\, the right of paternity becomes only par t of academic metrics\, aimed to generate long lists of publications in ac ademic cv and citations in commercial databases like Scopus\, ISI WoS\, an d Google Scholar. Not surprisingly\, according to some studies\, the logic s of “publish or perish” and “impact or perish” foster scientific miscondu ct (e.g.\, falsification\, fabrication\, plagiarism).\n\nOn the other hand \, economic rights (reproduction\, distribution etc.) become the leverage of the oligopolistic power of commercial and proprietary databases which c oncentrate publishing and evaluation – related to metrics – powers. For ex ample\, Elsevier is at the same time the biggest scientific publisher and the “largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature”. This market power is the result of the interplay between copyright and the contemporary processes of academic evaluation connected to the notion of “metrics”. In this perspective\, the real goal of economic copyright is no t to disseminate\, but to concentrate the control of scientific informatio n in few hands.\n\nThe Open Access and Open Science movements are trying t o oppose the distortion of academic copyright and indeed re-establish its original twofold function (priority and dissemination). Nevertheless\, it is worth emphasising that\, without a deep and radical change in the proce ss of academic evaluation and in the copyright law\, the progress of scien ce and academic freedom will be at great risk.\n\nAbout the speaker\n\nRob erto Caso\, co-director of Trento LawTech Group\, is Associate Professor o f Comparative Private Law at University of Trento\, Faculty of Law\, where he teaches Civil Law [Diritto civile]\, Comparative Intellectual Property Law\, Comparative Privacy Law\, Copyright law and Art\, Private Law and I CTs. He is author and editor of many publications in the field of Intellec tual Property\, Privacy\, Contract Law and Tort Law. He is President of th e Italian Association for the Promotion of Open Science [Asssociazione Ita liana per la promozione della Scienza Aperta\, AISA].\n\nThis talk is accr edited for 1.5 hours of Continuing Legal Education for jurists by a recogn ized provider.\n\n \n DTSTART:20171127T180000Z DTEND:20171127T193000Z LOCATION:NCDH 316\, Chancellor Day Hall\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 1W9\, 36 44 rue Peel SUMMARY:Poisonous Science : the Dark Side of Academic Copyright in the Digi tal Age URL:/law/channels/event/poisonous-science-dark-side-ac ademic-copyright-digital-age-282341 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR