Here are 5 images from SpringerImages to give an idea of the breadth of coverage. Note that none of these are “scientific” – graphs, etc. All are copyrighted by Springer (in some form). I do not believe any of the original sources are Springer journals or books (i.e. they are third party material publisher with/out permission in Springer outlets.

HYPOTHESIS – none of the original creators are aware of and approve of Springer copyrighting the material and badging it with SpringerImages.

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_s10460-009-9209-6-0

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_s10583-009-9098-8-10

Fig 11 

Katie in the ravine. © Groundwood Books, 2008

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_s10583-009-9098-8-13

Fig 14 

Iris falling from the sky. © Jim Zubkavich, 2006

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_978-90-481-8647-1_3-5

Caption

Fig 6 

The rescue of baby Jessica. Source: “The Baby Jessica Rescue Web Page,” http://www.caver.net/j/jrescue.html . Accessed 24 November 2008

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_s10912-006-9025-6-1

HYPOTHESIS: originally from http://www.ronsangels.com/

Five days ago I wrote to Springer about violations of copyright on their site, SpringerImages. Since then I have documented everything on this blog and those who want to know more details can read recent blogs. I have made it clear that I consider the current practice is unacceptable, morally, legally, and ethically.

Springer rang me yesterday , agreed to put out a factual statement about the site. They then contacted me and asked me to retract what I had said and its implications. I said I would retract the word “theft”. Much of the rest of what I have said is fact. Springer have not yet explained the problem.

The current position is summarised by Mike Taylor http://svpow.com/2012/06/05/springer-are-digging-themselves-deeper-into-a-hole/ . He also says:

First up, Bettina Goerner, Springer’ Science and Business Media Open Access Manager, who spoke with Peter:

Something has gone wrong. Springer is working very hard. They hope to fix it by July.

By July?! So what we’re being told is this: Springer have a grotesque attribution, licencing and copyright problem on their Images site, whether by design or accident, which results in their gaining revenue from material that is not theirs. And they intend to continue profiting from it for another month. Not acceptable! At the very least, the Springer Images site should immediately be modified to show a prominent banner stating “the copyright and licence information pertaining to these resources is wrong: contact the original creators for permissions” until the mistakes are all fixed.

That is the least they can do. Since I may be asked to RETRACT opinions I shall stick to FACTs and labelled HYPOTHESES. I shall also deal ONLY with non-OA content. (The problem that alerted me was in the mislabelling of my OA CC-BY material.)

I would welcome correction of what follows:

• FACT: SpringerImages are still listing my content as “copyright BMC”, 5 days after my reporting it.
• FACT The site is a commercial site (confirmed by Bettina Goerner). As an example, if an academic wishes to use a Springer image in a course pack it will cost USD60.
• FACT Individual (non-corporate) membership costs USD595 (presumably per year) from the site
• FACT: Many of the licensing algorithms (and I found it very difficult to get quotes) refer to “agents of a commercial organization” and “member of the pharmaceutical industry”. HYPOTHESIS: they also sell to industry and generate income.
• HYPOTHESIS: Much (probably most) of the SpringerImages site is taken from Non-OA material sources,
• FACT much of it is copyrighted “Springer” (various Springer companies such as Springer Verlag, Springer Medizin, etc.)
• FACT the visitor to the site is told that they require a subscription to view the images.
• FACT I looked for apparent, alleged, violations of third party copyright (such as Wikipedia). Out of the first ten examples I looked at all were copyrighted Springer.
• HYPOTHESIS Some of the authors of these materials have not given Springer explicit permission to include them in Springer Images, change the copyright and resell them.
• FACT after 5 days I have been unable to find any changes to the site as a result of reporting the problem(s).
• FACT Springer are aware that there are images on the site that are mislabelled.
• FACT They are continuing to sell them
• FACT Springer have made no public announcement to customers of SpringerImages.
• HYPOTHESIS some customers will pay for material that Springer does not have the right to sell to them
• HYPOTHESIS some customers will pay for material that should be branded as FREE (gratis and libre).

In the UK many insurance companies sold insurance to people who did not need it. This has been called “mis-selling”. They have had to pay people back.

HYPOTHESIS The “glitch” is a serious system failure – FACT it will take a month to fix.

FACT If an airplane is found to be defective the company has to ground it.

FACT If an electric appliance is found to be defective it must be taken off the market (or recalled)

FACT If insurance is mis-sold the industry has to give the money back.

HYPOTHESIS Springer does not feel the same rules apply to them. FACT they have taken no action.

The absolute least they could do is:

• Put a statement ON THE SITE stating there is a problem
• Offer to refund anyone who has been mis-sold images (of course this may be zero, in which case there isn’t a problem)

In fact I HYPOTHESIZE the glitch will be very difficult to fix, for the following reason:

• FACT when an author requests permission from a publisher to reproduce an image they do it for a specific purpose. Springer do this: (http://www.springerpub.com/resources/authors/permissions#.T88MYsWQlS0 ). HYPOTHESIS. They will have to visit many of the 3 million images using human eyeballs

They also state here (FACT)

Welcome to Springer Publishing Company’s permissions and copyrights page. You must obtain written permission to reuse or reproduce material found in our books and journals, unless:

• You are a Springer author seeking to reuse your own material.
  
• You are planning on using our material in a dissertation.
  

Although you are not required to obtain written permission for the above mentioned exceptions, the reproduced material must be accompanied by a full citation.

Prior to requesting permission, please verify that Springer Publishing Company is the rightsholder to the material you are planning to use.

The copyright page of all of our books and journals lists “Springer Publishing Company” as the publisher and copyright holder. There are other publishers that use the name Springer (e.g., Springer-Verlag, Springer Science+Business Media, and Axel Springer), so please verify that we are the publisher.

If the material in the Springer title is attributed to someone else or labeled as “reprinted” or “reused with permission”, that means we do not control the rights to the material, and you must contact the source cited to request permission. (PMR emphasis).

So third party material in Springer does not belong to Springer and they do not have rights to it and they know this:

• FACT: many examples of third party material that I have found have been put SpringerImages, labelled as Springer copyright and offered for sale.
• HYPOTHESIS The original rights holders are unaware that this material is being badged and sold
• HYPOTHESIS. If I or others dug around a bit more I would find more examples
• FACT Springer have done nothing public about this and continue to offer it for sale.
• HYPOTHESIS It was the glitch that did it, honest guv.

I will use the term “mis-selling”. If Springer feel this is unfair I will call it something else.

• FACT relabeling someone else’s labelled work with your copyright is illegal
• FACT knowingly continuing to sell it breaks laws in most countries of the world

My OPINION is that the only way that Springer can avoid these problems is to close the site until they have found the glitch (or the family of glitches).

Oh, and a small FACTOID:

Almost none of these images have been created by Springer or their employees or as works for hire. The creative effort in these works has come from outside Springer. But that’s a different blog post.

Let’s find that pesky glitch!

Springer have given an answer to some of my questions – I interleave my comments

SpringerOpen

5:26 PM (edited)  –  Public

Springer Statement on Springer Images
5 June 2012

>>We have contacted Peter Murray-Rust, a blogger, to discuss Springer Images.  Mr Murray-Rust has drawn attention to problems with the www.springerimages.com website and Springer is working flat out to correct them. Mr Murray-Rust has, on his blog (/pmr/2012/06/05/springergate-update-from-bettina-goerner-and-some-explanations-i-urge-that-scientific-images-should-be-free-as-in-speech-for-everyone/), made allegations that are untrue and we would like to respond to them.

If Springer can show to my, and public satisfaction that any of my statements are untrue, then I will retract them.

>>An image that shows up on Springer Images must first be published in a Springer book or journal via the normal publication process, including delivery into our publishing content system. The image is then delivered for display on Springer Images (with the appropriate copyright attribution as determined by the metadata).

There is nothing on the “About” page (http://www.springerimages.com/about.aspx ) that makes this statement. If you can point to a public page that states where Springer Images are obtained from, please do so.

>>We screen for keywords in the caption (in both English and German) that indicate that an image is “used with permission” or “copyright” of someone else to make a decision whether to include an image or not.

“With permission” may very well grant permission for the image to occur in a journal article but not to be resold in a database. See comment about your copyright transfer form. at the end. Do you EXPLICITLY ask authors in Springer journals to obtain permission to include the images in SpringerImages?

>>It is, however, possible that an image is used by an author without correct attribution, i.e. that correct attribution is not indicated in the caption. Unfortunately, as a result, the incorrect copyright attribution displays on Springer Images. However, we would like to make it very clear that, in every case where this is brought to our attention, we remove the images manually, usually on the same day the problem is reported.

Noted.

>>This hardly constitutes “mass copytheft”. /pmr/2012/06/04/springer-asserts-copyright-over-wikimediawikipedia-content-technical-incompetence-or-mass-copytheft/

Mr Murray-Rust not only attributes the problem incorrectly to Springer Images, but also insinuates that Springer is selling commercial rights to use images that are already open access. This is not only outrageous and blatantly false, it also damages our reputation.

That was the clear impression given for my own material. Whether or not it was a “glitch” that is effectively what you site stated. Errors are not a defence. Errors damage people’s reputations.

>>Open access images on Springer Images are open access, full stop. They are available for use according to the relevant open access license of the publication.

Springer uses “Open Access” to cover CC-NC as well as CC-BY. So it is not a useful term here. When I inspected the Springer site I could not find ANY CC-BY licences exposed.

>>In this particular case, the type of OA license is listed incorrectly and ensuring that it is listed correctly is what we are working on solving. Also, for some images coming from OA articles, the copyright reads Springer or BioMed Central but should read “The authors”. This is something we are in the process of fixing as well.

This is not just a question of Biomed Central, it also applies to Wikipedia and many other sources. The licence of the publication may not reflect the rights on the image.

>>Licenses for Springer Images do not cover the OA content, only the content for which Springer owns the copyright.

I do not understand this. Maybe it will be clearer when the site is mended

>>The larger implication, that Springer is “stealing” copyright and the insinuation that Springer is attempting to profit from “ill-gotten gains” is false and we call upon Peter Murray-Rust to correct this allegation immediately.

I stand by what I saw on the site – my content had been systematically transferred to Springer. My investigations suggested that this was not confined to me.

The site is commercial. Springer receives money for providing the images (This was confirmed by your colleague).

If you feel I am impugning your motivation I will leave that to others to judge. I will therefore rephrase the statement that “on the days that I inspected the site there was widespread mislabelling of content (for whatever reason) and that statements were made that to access this content a subscription was necessary”. I will retract the word “theft” (as it implies motivation) on the expectation that Springer will give a clear public statement as to why this happened and to assure the world that they have not benefitted substantively from the mislabelling. To do this I would suggest they employ independent auditors.

It is not just the mislabelling of OA content such as BMC. My impression, which you are welcome to correct, is that non-OA Springer publications often include Open material such as Wikipedia content. This appears to have been transferred into SpringerImages for relicensing under Springer ownership and license. To correct this Springer will need to identify every such piece of content (not just the article) and correct the licence and relink back to the original source. I will note that many images have no link back to any source, which in the case of CC-BY is anyway unacceptable. If these problems are all part of the glitch and if you can correct it I will re-comment.

>>Springer is one of the few large publishers that has enthusiastically embraced open access, and we are not in the business of hoodwinking our customers or the researchers we work with.

Noted. I support much of what BMC does. I note that your CEO does not expect OA to be more than a minor part of your market.

>>That said, we are addressing the problems as quickly as we can and are grateful to the scientific community for their help in pointing out the problem.

Thank you.

>>Wim van der Stelt
Executive Vice President
Corporate Strategy
Springer Science+Business Media

I will point out that Springer’s transfer of copyright (www.springer.com/?SGWID=3-102-45-69724-0 ) that authors sign (for non-OA material) makes no explicit mention of commercial re-use in SpringerImages

The copyright transfer covers the exclusive right and license to reproduce, publish, distribute and archive the article in all forms and media of expression now known or developed in the future, including reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, microform, electronic form (offline, online) or any other reproductions of similar nature.

When authors approach a third party for permission to reproduce an image in a Springer publication do those authors also ask the third party for permission to have it reproduced and sold in Springer Images under Springer copyright? Ensuring permission to publish in a given journal is not the same as global permission to own all rights.

UPDATE:

The subscription to SpringerImages for an individual are from the Springer site:

SpringerImages Individual Subscription Rates

• SpringerImages: Medical and Life Sciences (Website + Mobile) — $395
  
• All Subjects (Website + Mobile) — $595
  
• SpringerImages: Medical and Life Sciences (Mobile Only) — $29.99 Click here for more details
  
• All Subjects (Mobile Only) — $49.99 Click here for more detai
  

So access to the full set – in which the currently mislabelled content is – is nearly $600 (presumably per year).

I have been contacted by Bettina Goerner, Springer Science+Business Media, Manager Open Access
who rang me to discuss Springer’s position and explanation. We agreed that everything she and I said was on the record. I said that I would prefer Springer to give the authoritative account of the situation as I was unfamiliar with SpringerImages (and that I found it a very difficult site to understand. I shall give a brief summary here and let her comment further. I am open to corrections.

“SpringerImages republishes images from Springer publications (books , journals). The world can access them for free for non-commercial re-use but has to pay for (access to) the image database for commercial use. [We did not define non-commercial use].”

“The material published in Springer Open Access journals in SpringerImages is meant to be labelled with CC-BY and with the name of the copyright owner /authors.”

“Something has gone wrong. Springer is working very hard. They hope to fix it by July”. They are going to go through all the articles individually. Since there are 2.5 million images that’s an awful lot of articles.

Springer asked me to publish an explanation on this blog. I said I was not competent to do so – that only Springer can do that. They are going to do so. If they let me know where and when I will publish a link here.

They said they will explain why they had content labelled by Wiley and PLoS but we did not discuss that further.

Springer agreed that they receive revenue from the site. I am not clear whether this is licences or access – Springer will have to say.

Springer thanked me for alerting them to problems they were unaware of.

We did not discuss why CC-NC was labelled as “fully open access”.

My comments:

I have only been acquainted with the site for two days, but I find it poorly laid out and inconsistent. IF, as Springer assert, the content only comes from Springer articles I find it amazing that many of the images have no link back to the article. Where’s this one from, for example? http://www.springerimages.com/Images/ComputerScience/1-10.1007_s11192-011-0362-5-1 Maybe it’s a “metadata glitch”.

It is clear that Springer have problems managing the IPR from this exercise. Managing the downstream re-use of provenance is known to be a hard problem.

I am not imputing motives of any sort to Springer – because that’s something you can do just as well.

NOW:

WOULDN’T ALL THIS BE MUCH BETTER FOR THE WHOLE WORLD IF SCIENTIFIC IMAGES COULD BE UNIVERSALLY RE-USED WITHOUT FORMAL PERMISSION? CC-BY.

Because Springer have no moral right to these images. They haven’t created them, they haven’t paid for them as a work for hire. They have simply extorted them from the scientific community to protect their brand and to create a cheap and (until now) easy source of revenue.

It’s complete waste of time any money for scientists.

I have communicated with Wikip(m)edia over the apparent systematic relicensing and relabeling of their content into “SpringerImages”. It’s fair to say that the individuals I have heard from are seriously upset. The action is clearly a breach of copyright and therefore illegal in most jurisdictions.

The problem is that Wikip(m)edia are not the owners of the content. So they can’t do anything legally.

But they can and should and will (I hope) make a public fuss. They have suggested blogging it (and Wikipedia carries a great deal of public opinion).

So I have:

• Searched http://springerimages.com for “Wikipedia”. This will only give results where the string “Wikipedia” is in the caption, and there are probably >>10 times more than won’t have this. But this gave 350 hits. Therefore I assume there are thousands of Wikipedia images badged as “SpringerImages”.
• Looked for the licensor. In some cases this is not Springer, so I assume it is a publisher which is either owned by Springer or where they have an agreement with Springer. Note that the material taken from Wiley and PLoS is relicensed as Springer’s. I have omitted any material which does not have “Springer” in the licensor.
• Copied the results to this page for the first ten I found.

I have found NO (ZILCH, NADA in Neylon-speak) entries which honour the original licensee. I therefore hypothesize that “ALL your open content are belong to SPRINGER”.

I shall continue.

No doubt Springer will say “terribly sorry, it was a glitch”. It’s a very profitable glitch for them. They resell other people’s content and build up a brand from it. When it goes wrong they can say “sorry”.

For me this is similar to the infamous fake journals published by Elsevier

UPDATE: Daniel Mietchen (Wikimedia/OKFN) has just mailed me http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_used_by_media_organizations_but_violating_license_terms – a special page that WP uses for recording violations. It contains the phrase:

“Sometimes, media organizations just don’t understand that in most cases, you just can’t rip an image off Commons and just use it.”

Well, Springer, you had better understand that right now. Because you have spent enough time telling US what we cannot do.

The first ten images: (URL and “Springer” content)

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Education/1-10.1007_978-1-4419-1551-1_23-0

Caption

Fig 1 

A typical 10 inch student slide rule (from Wikipedia Commons – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule )

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http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Engineering/1-10.1007_978-3-642-11865-4_22-1

Caption

Fig 2 

Pluripotent, embryonic stem cells originate as inner mass cells within a blastocyst. The stem cells can become any tissue in the body, excluding a placenta. Only the morula cells are totipotent, able to become all tissues and a placenta. Image from http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/735/73539.png.htm (Original work by Mike Jones for Wikipedia)

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Environment/1-10.1007_s11356-010-0315-1-1

Caption

Fig 1 

The preserved Vasa in the main hall of Vasa Museum seen from above the bow (source: Wikipedia commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vasa_above_bow1.jpg )

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/MedicineAndPublicHealth/1-10.1007_s00194-009-0602-7-1

Caption

Fig 2 

a Artifizielle Deformierung eines Inkaschädels (Potosi Décembre 2007 – La Mondea 2; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/sch%C3%A4deldeformation vom 11.05.2009; Foto: Martin St-Amant – Wikipedia); b Kinderschädel und -unterkiefer aus Norddeutschland

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/ComputerScience/1-10.1007_978-3-642-18234-1_4-4

Caption

Fig 1 

Beispiel für eine Taxonomie: Systematik der Säugetiere (Ausschnitt, vgl. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematik_der_Säre )

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Chemistry/1-10.1007_978-1-4419-6618-6_3-1

Caption

Fig 2 

(a) Atrazine formula ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atrazin.png ) and (b) three-dimensional structure ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atrazine-3D-balls.png ; courtesy of Benjah-bmm27)

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Chemistry/1-10.1007_978-1-4419-6618-6_3-2

Caption

Fig 3 

Light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis at the thylakoid membrane (created using Powerpoint, based on Taiz and Zeiger, Plant Physiology, 4th edition, ISBN 0-87893-856-7; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylakoid_membrane.png ; original uploader was Tameeria at en.wikipedia; released into the public domain by the author)

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/MedicineAndPublicHealth/1-10.1007_s00347-008-1900-2-4

Caption

Fig 5 

Elektronenmikroskopische Aufnahmen der Spirochaete Treponema pallidum, dem Erreger der Lues. Bilder aus http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treponema_pallidum (a) und http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treponema_pallidum (b)

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/Environment/1-10.1007_978-94-007-2123-4_14-3

Caption

Fig 4 

GDP versus fuel prices, countries (Metschies 2005)

Note: Fuel price ( http://www.internationalfuelprices.com ), GDP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita ) Petroleum production ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum ); excluding countries with average annual GDP under $2000

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/MedicineAndPublicHealth/1-10.1007_978-1-4614-0170-4_1-0

Caption

Fig 1 

The poppy plant as depicted in an old manuscript and as it appears in the field. Opium is derived from the pods and two crops can be grown annually. (a) Left side from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_poppy . (b) Right side from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/poppy

I am randomly browsing through SpringerImages (springerimages.com) which offer images for sale for commercial purposes. I have no idea what is in there (and some of it is VERY badly indexed – images which relate to “in the same article” – but the article is never given).

But here’s one. I reproduce it as I have no idea who owns it. My emphasis is in large bold.

For non-chemists “Angewandte Chemie” is a high-profile journal published by Wiley.

Yes, WILEY.

A major toll-access commercial publisher. A publisher who sent their lawyers after graduate student Shelley Batts published one graph from their journal. Even though Shelley was making a valid scientific point Wiley threatened to sue her. (They said it was a mistake, but they have never put in place anything to say it’s fair use or to stop it happening again.)

So here is Springer apparently, allegedly, rebadging “Wiley” content and reselling it. The article is http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.200800073/pdf. It is toll-access and I have verified the image is inside it, that there is no Open Access or licence that permits re-use and that YOU would have to pay.

Well this is one of those ganster films where the innocent victim manages to get to rival gangs fighting it out. I’ll be interested.

1. Will Wiley demand legal redress?
2. Will Wiley and Springer unite and cover up?
3. Or will one of them bottle it?

All this shows the total rottenness in toll-access commercial scholarly publication. Try to grab as much content as possible and resell it.

Caption

Fig 4 

TEM images of (a) the 3 nm polyhedral (b) the 5 nm truncated cubic, and (c) the 7 nm cubic Pt Nanoparticles. The insets are the representative HRTEM images of corresponding single particles, showing (a) Pt (111), (b) Pt (100), and (c) Pt (100) lattice fringes. All scale bars in the insets correspond to 1 nm. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Wang et al. [17] Angewandte Chemie-International
Edition 47:3588–3591

Extracts from the Article What’s this?

Polyhedral (3 nm), truncated cubic (5 nm), and cubic (7 nm) Pt nanoparticles were prepared, with dominating lattice fringes of Pt (111), Pt (100), and Pt (100) respectively, as shown in the TEM images in Fig. 4.

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Other Images from this Article

SEM images of: (a) nanoporous Pt surface; and (b) typical nanoporous Pt-Ru electrode. Magnification: 5000×. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Koczkur et al. [23]

TEM images of Pt hollow nanospheres (a) and (b). This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Liang et al. [27]

Cyclic voltammograms of the different electrocatalysts in nitrogen-saturated 0.5 M H2SO4 +1.0 M CH3OH at a scan rate of 50 mV s−1. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Wu et al. [53]

Illustration of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell

a SEM image of PtPd nanotubes. b TEM image and electron diffraction pattern (inset) of PtPd nanotubes. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Chen et al. [54]

a Loss of electrochemical surface area (ECSA) of Pt/C, platinum-black (PtB), and Pt nanotube catalysts with number of CV cycles in Ar-purged 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. b ORR curves in O2-saturated 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. Inset: Mass activity (top) and specific activity (bottom) for the four catalysts at 0.85 V. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Chen et al. [54]

SEM images of (a) cross section and (b) surface of Pd NWAs. Inset in (a): XRD pattern of Pd NWAs. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Xu et al. [22]

License

This image is copyrighted by Springer-Verlag London Limited.

The image is being made available for non-commercial purposes for subscribers to SpringerImages. For more information on what you are allowed to do with this image, please see our copyright policy.

If you would like to obtain permissions for the re-use or re-print of this image, please click here.

Report a copyright concern regarding this image.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.200800073/pdf

Here’s another “technical bug” from Springer. Rebadging of PLoS content as “Springer Images”, under CC-NC and for re-sale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auric_Goldfinger said:

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

There are too many different sources to assume it’s a glitch. It looks like a systematic attempt to copyright Open material. Note that there is NOTHING in this material that highlights PLoS’ copyright and CC-BY licence. (Lesson: It’s a very good idea to stamp all OA material everywhere to prevent predatory companies like Springer).

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/HumanitiesArts/1-10.1007_978-90-481-2611-8_12-1

Caption

Fig 2 

Map of sampling sites. From: Rusch, D. B., Halpern, A. L., Sutton, G., Heidelberg, K. B., Williamson, S., et al. (2007). The Sorcerer II global ocean sampling expedition: Northwest Atlantic through Eastern Tropical Pacific. PLoS Biology, 5(3), e77 DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050077

Extracts from the Article What’s this?

12.2 ). .

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Other Images from this Article

‘A Map of Lewis and Clark’s Track, Across the Western Portion of North America from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean.’ Copied by Samuel Lewis from the original drawing by William Clark. Published in 1814

License

This image is copyrighted by Springer Netherlands.

The image is being made available for non-commercial purposes for subscribers to SpringerImages. For more information on what you are allowed to do with this image, please see our copyright policy.

If you would like to obtain permissions for the re-use or re-print of this image, please click here.

Report a copyright concern regarding this image.

In my last post I described how Springer Images had taken all my CC-BY image content from J. Cheminformatics and relabelled it as THEIR content and forbidden commercial re-use except under Springer terms. Springer and BMC say this was a technical error that they will fix.

I have now been browsing more items on the site.

I have not discovered ANY ITEM where Springer have honoured an original permissive licence. Everything I have seen has been labelled CC-NC, which suits Springer’s business process of reselling the content. (I don’t know what the prices and terms are – you have to write for them).

Here is Wikipedia content. Obviously that’s not BMC’s problem. But it’s mine and many others. Highlighting (large bold monotype) is mine. Read it – it’s self-evident what has happened. My comments follow

http://www.springerimages.com/Images/LifeSciences/1-10.1007_s12052-011-0326-5-0

Caption

Fig 1 

a) North American Beaver (C. canadensis) (this file is licensed under the Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/American_Beaver.jpg ). b) Male and female human (H. sapiens) (this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany license. Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Akha_couple.JPG )

Extracts from the Article What’s this?

As humans (Homo sapiens; see Fig. 1), we often find it difficult to think of ourselves as animals that interact with the environment.

When a North American beaver (Castor canadensis; see Fig. 1) builds a dam, we somehow perceive it differently than when we build a dam.

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License

This image is copyrighted by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The image is being made available for non-commercial purposes for subscribers to SpringerImages. For more information on what you are allowed to do with this image, please see our copyright policy.

If you would like to obtain permissions for the re-use or re-print of this image, please click here.

Report a copyright concern regarding this image.

So my hypothesis is that ALL items in Springer images are CC-BY and Springer will charge for any commercial re-use. Note, of course, if you know, you can go to Wikipedia. But many people don’t know. And if the content is stamped “Springer Images” it’s easy to make a mistake.

If I’m right, then there are three interpretations:

• Springer is incompetent. This is no defence in law. If someone electrocutes themselves in my lab it’s my fault. But copytheft from the Open community carries little real-world penalty.
• Springer doesn’t care. “All your images are belong to us”. This is institutionalism. Why should Springer care about Wikipedia’s rights or PM-R’s – they don’t matter.
• Springer is deliberately making money from Open content. And without me they would still be doing it.

You make your mind up. Maybe Springer will tell us. If so, let’s analyse the clarity of their language.

But yes – when you are large and powerful the weak are casualties.

I thought that Springer were among the more reputable of the major publishers when it comes to Open Access and authors’/readers’ rights but I am now disillusioned.

Two days ago I searched for one of my images published in the Journal of Cheminformatics. I was shocked to discover that it had been copied to Springer’s site, my copyright and co-authors had been removed, and that its licence (CC-BY) had been replaced by a CC-NC one. And, unless I am informed differently, Springer were selling it for commercial use.

The issue is slightly complicated because BMC are owned by Springer. But in effect this is a company misappropriating my work. I wrote to the editor of BMC, Matt Cockerill and was informed:

Peter, as per my response on Twitter [*], this is a technical error/bug in SpringerImage’s rather than anything more sinister.

The authors of course retain copyright, and the material remains CC-BY.

Our production team are working with Springer to resolve the issue as fast as possible, and to correct the erroneous copyright/license info introduced due to a defect in the conversion process.

Thanks for your understanding – I’ll let you know when it is sorted.

Matt
 

[*] The tweet was not addressed to me.

My simple browsing suggests that ALL my images suffer from this “bug”.

The points at issue are;

• People who wish to use my images are either unable to or are paying Springer for something that Springer has no right to charge for.
• The site is still up and people are still being denied my and their rights

I have (literally now) received the following:

Dear David [Wild, Ed J Cheminformatics] 

I have just tried to call you to discuss your concerns below. Please accept our apologies that the images appear to be licensed under CC BY NC while the original article is published under CC BY. This is obviously a mistake and boils down to a glitch at the website springerimages.com. We will try to fix this as soon as possible. Our responsible IT colleagues in London are currently not in the office due to the Jubilee activities and we thus might require some more time to fix this, I am afraid. The wrong copyright line for some of the articles is something  we will investigate, too.

Please accept my apologies on behalf of Springer and BioMed Central. We will do everything we can to fix this as soon as possible.

Best regards

Bettina

––

Bettina Goerner
Springer Science+Business Media

Manager Open Access

While I accept this explanation it shows serious problems with Open Access in large toll-access publishers. Whether an error or not it is technically copytheft. Pleading error when misappropriating rights and or money is no defence in court.

However I think it is more than simple error – I think it is an institutionalized failure to treat Openness properly. Failure leads to Springer charging people when they shouldn’t be charged and without their being able to challenge this – failure should benefit the customer , not Springer. It suggests there is no independent audit in place – which I would have felt was essential for a site which automatically aggregated other people’s content , relicensed and resold it.

To continue the institutionalized failure, here is what Springer describes as “fully open access” (the emphasis is mine):

http://www.diabetestherapy-open.com/Home/open-access

Open Access

Diabetes Therapy is fully open access. Open access means that everyone around the world can read and download your article for free — no subscription or pay-per-view fees! Not only is the article open access, but all the interactive features are free to view too. And our authors keep their noncommercial copyright, so they can share their work freely with colleagues.

For readers: All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License. You can read, redistribute and reuse the articles for free, as long as you cite the authors of the original work properly and do not use them for commercial purposes.

For authors: Upon acceptance of your article for publication, you will be required to pay the article open access fee of £150/$250/€175 per printed page. This will enable you to keep the copyright; you are simply assigning the exclusive right to any commercial use of the article to Springer. Your article will be immediately and permanently available with open access.

To be fair in 2012-01 Springer changed its hybrid author-pays OA licence from CC-NC to CC-BY . But if it is picking and choosing which OA journals are CC-NC and CC-BY it’s a broken policy.

And calling this “fully open access” is nothing short of violation of trade description.

So I need a considered response from Springer. If Springer can show they have an audit mechanism in place that will go a little way to making amends. I would like answers to the following:

• How many objects in Springer Images have been mislabelled?
• Has there been any audit of the site?
• How much money has Springer taken for mislabelled material?

It’s easy to say it’s a bug. It’s also easy to set the site up (whether deliberately or not) so everyone pays for everything and it relies on someone like me to point out the problem. That’s unacceptable.

If I misappropriated Springer material they would be on me like a shot. But there is no-one to defend the public domain and CC-BY. That’s why copytheft is so common and so profitable (whether deliberate or not). There’s no penalty even when you are found out and you keep the money you have made.

So maybe Springer are trying hard. But since there is no regulation in #scholpub we can expect poor quality, poor value and worse.

UPDATE:

http://www.springer.com/open+access?SGWID=0-169302-0-0-0

says:

SpringerOpen – Springer’s portfolio of peer-reviewed open access journals

Our SpringerOpen journals cover all subject areas in science, technology and medicine (STM). All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, enabling authors to retain copyright to their work.

Except for Diabetes Therapy (and no doubt more).

And why, if Springer make such a fuss about CC-BY (which they should) are they creating an image resource protected by CC-NC so they can exploit them?

John Wilbanks and others have been campaigning to the White House (https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/require-free-access-over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded-research/wDX82FLQ ) to

Require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research.

Today we got them – after 2 weeks of campaigning.

John has pledged to dress up as Snoopy but I thought I would be the first anthropomorphic celebrant. This is me in my voting suit along with #gulliverturtle – the Open access turtle and Penguin with the Open Access button

All good fun.

But seriously. As Churchill said “this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning”.

A long struggle lies ahead. There’s 10 Billion USD at stake and faceless organizations fighting to preserve the status quo. It will require legislation and/or breakdown of the market.

The critical thing is for us to become organized. Universities are letting us down every day. They pay Danegeld to the publishers rather than fight.

But today’s victory helps to legitimize us.

And we look forward to Snoopy.