[DRAFT] Academic Collaboration Act

by **Liberea** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:26 am

Dear All,

I have recently submitted a proposal to the World Assembly under the name 'The Academic Collaboration Act'

We would very much appreciate it if you endorsed this much needed act.

Many Thanks,

Maximus Sterling

:idea:

Edit: I will resubmit this act after more detail has been added, please feel free to add any suggestions, comments or criticism to help shape this act.

Many Thanks

by **Grays Harbor** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:43 am

Our Ambassador has read it and has found it to be vague and ill defined and as such we cannot support this. Perhaps next time your delegation could put this up for debate prior to submission. There are several fine legal minds in this assembly more than willing to offer advise and suggestions. Why you did not take advantage of this and submitted this poorly thought out and written proposal instead is somewhat confusing to us.

Academic Collaboration Act
A resolution to promote funding and the development of education and the arts.

Category: Education and Creativity
Area of Effect: Educational
Proposed by: Liberea

Description: Recognising the importance of international academic collaboration in the betterment of mankinds condition.

Understanding the need of academics to study papers released in other states.

Calling for pressure on states that restrict access to available outside papers to academics.

Demanding the free flow of scientific information without censorship from any governmental body.

by **Bears Armed** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:47 am

It is generally considered advisable for any ambasador who is making such a request to include the text of the proposal concerned in their post here, so that the other ambassadors don't have to hunt through the lists for this.
(In fact, although the advice is too late in this particular case, it is considered highly advisable for people who are preparing proposals to post their draft versions here for discussion before submission...)

by **Charlotte Ryberg** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:30 am

Although considered flexible in our opinion, the proposal as quoted by the honoured ambassador to Grays Harbor is too vague to approve. it would require elaboration rather than just the "oh, I have an idea" theory.

Yours etc,

by **NX401** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:38 am

i agree with the other Nations as well.this propsal can become a good proposal if liberea would explian this propsal in more elaborate detail.

by **Serrland** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:32 am

Demanding the free flow of scientific information without censorship from any governmental body.

Serrland has reservations about the afore-quoted clause. The specific knowledge of how to make a nuclear bomb is considered "scientific knowledge," is it not? Serrland would rather not have such learnings widely available to the public, which includes academia. It would best be kept between governments and scientists working on its behalf.

by **Liberea** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:38 pm

Serrland wrote:
Demanding the free flow of scientific information without censorship from any governmental body.

Serrland has reservations about the afore-quoted clause. The specific knowledge of how to make a nuclear bomb is considered "scientific knowledge," is it not? Serrland would rather not have such learnings widely available to the public, which includes academia. It would best be kept between governments and scientists working on its behalf.

Knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons or other weapons is almost exclusively done within the governmental structure by government employed scientists. Academics within the general educational and research arenas, which this act applies to do not work on such projects and if they did would not publish the papers to the public as with university research but to their employers.

I shall make a new draft in more detail and with more clarification and propose it, if anyone wishes to contribute please post your ideas on here.

Many Thanks

by **Liberea** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:18 pm

Here is a revised proposal for The Academic Collaboration Act

Please leave a comment.

Academic Collaboration Act
A resolution to promote funding and the development of education and the arts.

Category: Education and Creativity
Area of Effect: Educational
Proposed by: Liberea

Description:

RECOGNISING the importance of international academic collaboration in the betterment of mankinds condition.

UNDERSTANDING the considerable difficulties encountered when accessing scientific information published in different states.

DEFINING 'Academics' as researchers and/or educators and/or scientific workers employed by Universities, Academies, Schools, Colleges, Libraries or private research Institutes. 'Scientific Information' as papers, reviews and documents published in publically available peer reviewed Scientific Journals.

PROPOSING the right of entirely unerestricted access by Academics to Scientific Information, free from government censorship, tax, restriction or otherwise hinderance.

PROPOSING that states may not restrict access of Scientific Information to Academics in other states.

PROPOSING that it becomes illegal for any person to purposefully hinder access to Scientific Information to Academics.

RECOGNISING that the act does not provide defence to Academics which persue research activities that are illegal in their respective state.

UNDERSTANDING that the act does not request Academics to disclose work into the public domain.

Many Thanks

by **Serrland** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:34 pm

PROPOSING that states may not restrict access of Scientific Information to Academics in other states.

Suppose a scientist in Serrland develops a dangerous nerve agent. Would he be then obligated to, perhaps, share it with academics from state with whom Serrland is engaged in hostilities? It appears so, given this draft.

by **Liberea** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:47 pm

Serrland wrote:
PROPOSING that states may not restrict access of Scientific Information to Academics in other states.

Suppose a scientist in Serrland develops a dangerous nerve agent. Would he be then obligated to, perhaps, share it with academics from state with whom Serrland is engaged in hostilities? It appears so, given this draft.

The only way they would be obliged to share that information is if they had submitted it to the public domain as stated in the act. Firstly, I very much doubt that particular information would be submitted into the public domain assuming that development of weapons is not a academic persuit but one of government run or contracted projects which do not submit their data to the public. If the data has not been publically published, the act will not apply to it. Secondly if the scientist is breaking the law of your state by developing the agent then the act does not provide a defence for him and so the information could be restricted.

by **The Mountains Of Alba** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 5:56 pm

As a non-human nation what only mankind? As a maniacal society why only males?

by **Liberea** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:06 am

If noone wishes to add anything or have not find any flaws in this act I will submit it to the WA by the end of today.

Many Thanks.

by **Tanaara** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:59 am

OOC: I'd wait a bit longer, weekends can be slow posting.

by **Liberea** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:03 pm

No problem, ill wait until in the week. What do you think about this?

by **Grays Harbor** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:18 pm

How is this to effect copyrighted or patented works? Are they to be mandated to be freely transferred as well? If so, that would contravene nearly every copyright and patent law in existance, particularly resolution #61, the WA Copyright Charter.

by **Nordicus** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:07 pm

Grays Harbor wrote:How is this to effect copyrighted or patented works? Are they to be mandated to be freely transferred as well? If so, that would contravene nearly every copyright and patent law in existance, particularly resolution #61, the WA Copyright Charter.

How so? A copyright doesn't prevent a literary work or any other publication from being studied at an institution of higher education, nor does a patent prevent anyone from learning about the item or process which is patented (indeed, it encourages the opposite by making information about it more readily available).

by **Grays Harbor** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:20 pm

Because it is the mandated sharing of information. And we are not discussing literary work here, the draft has been fairly specific that it is scientific information that is the target. That would mean that proprietary copyrights and patents would be mandated by this to be shared among everybody who demands it.

by **Nordicus** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:12 pm

Grays Harbor wrote:Because it is the mandated sharing of information. And we are not discussing literary work here, the draft has been fairly specific that it is scientific information that is the target. That would mean that proprietary copyrights and patents would be mandated by this to be shared among everybody who demands it.

Patents have nothing at all to do with the issue. The information contained in patents is already freely available to anyone who requests it; it is only the commercial usage of the patented information that is restricted. Indeed, that is rather the point of patents: They allow a person or company to gain a temporary, government-guaranteed monopoly on their item or process, and in exchange, they make the information pertaining to that item or process public so that anyone with the required materials will be able to duplicate it after the monopoly period expires.

As for copyrights, many nations already have exceptions built into their copyright system which allow for academic use of copyrighted material. This legislation could perhaps be reworded a little better to specify that it is strictly allowing the sharing of information between academic institutions (the last line is admittedly vague), but that academic sharing is already commonplace and does not seem the least bit objectionable. This legislation is merely standardizing that practice.

by **Philimbesi** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:24 pm

Point of order, PROPOSING? Is that an operative clause, might want to think about.

ENSURES the right of entirely unerestricted access by Academics to Scientific Information, free from government censorship, tax, restriction or otherwise hinderance.

MANDATES that states may not restrict access of Scientific Information to Academics in other states.

FORBIDS for any person to purposefully hinder access to Scientific Information to Academics.

Also, I would run it through the spell-checker, education proposals with spelling and grammatical errors don't normally meet with a lot of support.

by **Grays Harbor** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:36 pm

Nordicus wrote:
Grays Harbor wrote:Because it is the mandated sharing of information. And we are not discussing literary work here, the draft has been fairly specific that it is scientific information that is the target. That would mean that proprietary copyrights and patents would be mandated by this to be shared among everybody who demands it.

Patents have nothing at all to do with the issue. The information contained in patents is already freely available to anyone who requests it; it is only the commercial usage of the patented information that is restricted. Indeed, that is rather the point of patents: They allow a person or company to gain a temporary, government-guaranteed monopoly on their item or process, and in exchange, they make the information pertaining to that item or process public so that anyone with the required materials will be able to duplicate it after the monopoly period expires.

As for copyrights, many nations already have exceptions built into their copyright system which allow for academic use of copyrighted material. This legislation could perhaps be reworded a little better to specify that it is strictly allowing the sharing of information between academic institutions (the last line is admittedly vague), but that academic sharing is already commonplace and does not seem the least bit objectionable. This legislation is merely standardizing that practice.

Voluntary sharing we have no problem with. It is the mandated sharing which this proposes we object to, and cannot support regardless of how "cleaned up" this proposal may become. As long as there is the mandate requirements as part of this, there will be no support from the Kingdom.

by **Nordicus** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:07 pm

My attempt at rewriting the proposal for clarity and specificity.

Academic Collaboration Act
A resolution to promote funding and the development of education and the arts.

Category: Education and Creativity
Area of Effect: Educational
Proposed by: Liberea

Description:
RECOGNIZING the importance of international academic collaboration for the betterment of mankind's condition;

UNDERSTANDING the importance of access to academic papers to said collaboration;

DISTRESSED that some nations restrict access to these academic papers;

DEFINING:

"Academic papers" to be peer-reviewed research and literature pertaining to an educational field, field of scientific study, and/or the arts and humanities as taught by institutions of education;

"Institutions of education" to be any accredited institutions which offer instruction to the citizens of a nation;

The World Assembly HEREBY:

1) FORBIDS member nations from enacting laws or policies which would interfere with the voluntary sharing of academic information between institutions of education within their own nation.

2) FORBIDS member nations from enacting laws or policies which would interfere with the voluntary sharing of academic information between such institutions of their own nation and other member nations.

3) FORBIDS member nations from censoring academic papers, except as allowed by international law.

The last exception is to pacify any national-security extremists and such; if they want to censor the papers, they could do so as long as they can get the WA to approve it. Also note that it does not prevent nations from restricting collaboration with nations which are not members of the World Assembly.

Thoughts and objections?

by **Liberea** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:08 pm

This is not mandated sharing, it merely gives the right to access papers that are already in the public domain. Authors are not forced to share, they share it when they voluntarily submit it to peer reviewed publically available scientific journals. It is their choice to share it with the world or not, hence corporate or governmental workers not having to share their data.

We are merely preventing intereference from third parties who wish to control the information.

by **Grays Harbor** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:09 pm

A step in the right direction, however, we will need to study this new version more closely before making any objections or suggestions.

by **Liberea** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:11 pm

Also I like the cleaned up version, thank you very much.

by **Nordicus** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 2:44 pm

Out of curiosity, has anyone had time to read over the rewritten proposal? If so, are there any comments on it?

[DRAFT] Academic Collaboration Act

[DRAFT] Academic Collaboration Act

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