Copyright: the new taxonomic impediment

Donat Agosti* & Norman F. Johnson***AMNH / **OSU

ZOOBANK-Symposium, ESA, Dec. 18, 2005

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by government for a limited time to regulate the use of a particular form, way or manner in which an idea or information is expressed.

In law, an exclusive right is the power or right to perform an action in relation to an object or other thing which others cannot perform. The law may require that a person seek such rights through application, or it may automatically grant such rights.

Exclusive rights may be granted in intellectual property law.

Most governments recognize a bundle of exclusive rights in relation to creative and scientific works and property under the umbrella term "intellectual property". An example is copyright..

(Source: Wikipedia)

Access to ant taxonomic publications through antbase.org /Smithsonian Institution, including currently the entire body of non-copyrighted publications since 1758 (>4,000 publications or 85,000 pages. Source: (Agosti 2005 and antbase.org)

Directly through enforcement of copyright

Approved by 148 against 2 votes (4 abstentions) by the General Conference of UNESCO in Paris, October 20

Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

ARTICLE 6 Towards access for all to cultural diversity

While ensuring the free flow of ideas by word and image, care should be exercised that all cultures can express themselves and make themselves known.Freedom of expression, media pluralism, multilingualism, equal access to art and to scientific and technological knowledge, including in digital form, and the possibility for all cultures to have access to the means of expression and dissemination are the guarantees of cultural diversity.

“The Real Death of Print”A. von Bubnoff, Nature 438:550-552, 01 Dec. 2005

Scanning

Pdf-conversion

(WWW)

Electronic revolution? Not yet.

Index 1 Index n DocsIndex ..

RDBMS

Retrieval Engine- Analyze queries- Use indices for SE and result improvement- Retrieve documents

- Functionality in Query Executor & Plugins

Query Pipeline

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Document Analyzer- Analyze documents (NLP)- Store documents- Create indices from analysis results

- Functionality in GATE & Plugins

NLP Analysis Pipeline

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Information Retrieval for Biodiversity Information Guido Sautter

• Taxonomic publications are “legal documents”, they must conform to the Codes to make the presented nomenclatorial decisions valid. Thus everybody should have access to these legally binding documents.

• Taxonomic publications are “legal documents”, they must conform to the Codes to make the presented nomenclatorial decisions valid. Thus everybody should have access to these binding documents.

• Taxonomic descriptions are factual knowledge, that is knowledge based on direct observations. Thus, taxonomic publications, at least the descriptive part, cannot be copyrighted, and can be open access.

Title

Author

Abstract

Introduction

Taxon descriptions

Suppl. Materials

Acknowledgments

References

Genus

Diagnosis

Notes

Biology

Distribution

Key to sp.

Species descriptions

Species descriptions

Species descriptions

Species 1

Species 2

Species 3

Species 4

Species ..

Species n

The structure of a systematics publication

Species descriptions

Species 1

Species 2

Species 3

Species 4

Species ..

Species n

Species descriptions

Nomenclature

Diagnosis

Distribution

Material Examined

Comments

Description

Graphic art

Species 1

The structure of a systematics publication, continued

Species (or taxa in case of higher level revisions) descriptions can be considered the building blocks or basic data elements of taxonomic publications. They are very rich in detail. All the other elements of a publications, are inferred from the analysis and synthesis of taxon descriptions.

The descriptions are also the ‚legal‘ element of the publication in compliance with the ICZN.

Nomenclature

Diagnosis

Distribution

Material Examined

Comments

Description

Graphic art

Species

Specimen 1

Specimen 2

Specimen …

Specimen n

Material exam.

Description

Character 1

Character 2

Character …

Character n

The structure of a systematics publication, continued

Species descriptions can be further resolved into the basic units, characters in the description sensu str., and the specimen records, which are a species at a given time at a given locality (collecting event).

They could be enhanced by shared ontologies and gazetteers

From text document to XML-document,

or the deconstruction of documents

Tax

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Data Domains and Standards

• Taxonomic names and concepts• Taxonomic Concept Schema (approved 2005)

• Specimen occurrence records• ABCD (approved 2005)• DarwinCore (under development)

• Characters and character states• Structure of Descriptive Data (approved 2005)

• Literature• TaxonX (under development)• TaXMLit (under development)

• Digital objects• Analytical results

ms submission

Edited ms

Revised ms

Publication: pdf

Publication: hard copy Ontology

Bibliography

analysis & ms preparation

Name Server

Character DB

Specimen DB

Description DB

Distribution DB

Char. Matrix DB

Phyl. Tree DB

Char-state img

Specimen img

Habitat Image

Legacy Pub.

Tax

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Accepted ms

The old - new taxonomy

ms submission(„Taxon-x-version“)

new ms alertPosting for review

Edited ms

Revised msPublication: pdf„Version control“

Publication: hard copy

Publication database(„taxon-x-version“)

Ontology

Bibliography

analysis & ms preparation

ZooBank / NS

Character DB

Specimen DB

Description DB

Distribution DB

Char. Matrix DB

Phyl. Tree DB

Char-state img

Specimen img

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… and the Future of Publication