The old professor sued China HowNet that the business of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs" should be changed!

Zhao Dexin, an 89 year old retired professor at Zhongnan University of economics and law, told CNKI, a platform giant in the field of papers. The reason is that the latter included more than 100 of his papers without authorization. The old man didn't get a penny of the manuscript fee, and he had to pay for his own download.

Professor Zhao finally won all the lawsuits and won a total compensation of more than 700000 yuan. China HowNet no longer includes his articles, and all the articles that have been included have been taken off the shelves.

"Taking without asking is stealing", which is a truth understood by children. However, China HowNet sold the articles published by the old professor for money and did "no capital business". As Professor Zhao Dexin said, "why can't the intellectual achievements I created be respected?" behind the "compulsory authorization" set by the overlord clause on the surface of China HowNet is the monopoly of intellectual property rights.

The way that CNKI obtains the copyright of papers is based on the channel advantage and even monopoly. Many times, it is not directly authorized by the original author, but packaged into the "formatting terms" of journals and University dissertations. How much is voluntary and helpless?

At present, China HowNet takes advantage of its dominant market position to cover the two channels of dissertations and periodical papers. If universities and periodicals want to obtain relevant resources, they must hand over the author's authorization. When submitting a thesis, master and doctoral graduates will generally be required by the university to sign the instructions on the authorization of the use of the thesis and authorize the thesis to CNKI. When scholars invest in journals, they are often required to authorize China HowNet to use them.

Therefore, generally speaking, the current academic theses and journal papers written by the original authors are included in CNKI, which at least meets the requirements of "authorization" in form. However, such "authorization" standard terms are obviously problematic.

On the one hand, it has no retroactive effect and cannot allow CNKI to obtain the network communication right of published papers and articles before the terms take effect. But China HowNet knows that it is wrong, or "overlord hard bow", which has included a considerable number of unauthorized papers.

For example, some of Professor Zhao Dexin's infringing papers were published in 2011 or even earlier. When Professor Zhao published his papers, he did not sign the authorization document. For another example, Wang Zengqi, the late writer on behalf of the Chinese character Copyright Association, also sued China HowNet for infringement, including and disseminating his articles for similar reasons.

Whether it is an 89 year old professor or Mr. Wang Zengqi, the reason why they can win the lawsuit is that the article was published earlier and they were not required to sign the authorization agreement, so as to escape the fate of "being dominated". Nowadays, the authors of most papers may find it difficult to defend their rights to CNKI because they are "agreed".

With more and more papers included, the business of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs" of China HowNet is completing the ecological closed loop, and the author's hope of winning the lawsuit will be smaller and smaller in the future.

Secondly, the authorization terms of China HowNet involve "overlord terms" and monopoly issues, which do not really reflect the respect for knowledge creators. The results of the author's painstaking creation were included in the China HowNet system after publication to seek high economic benefits, but the original author could not get due remuneration.

For example, CNKI only needs to pay 100 yuan and 400 yuan of retrieval and reading card to the author of the doctoral thesis at one time. However, for each time these articles are downloaded on CNKI, the platform will charge 0.5 yuan / page or even 1 yuan / page. "Those who are full of Luo Qi are not silkworm breeders", which is quite ironic.

The predecessor of China HowNet originated from the construction project of "China knowledge infrastructure project" in 1999. Its slogan is "action plan for national sharing of innovative knowledge resources". Words are still in my ears, but now the public image of China HowNet is changing from "dragon butcher" to "dragon".

Innovation is the first driving force for the future development of our country. China HowNet's innovative business of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs" should be changed! Return to public welfare and win-win with the author is the right way.