Blogging: Is it “fair use”?

Dave Kane writes:

I [Kane] am involved in a dispute relating to whether or not a blog can be considered part of one’s academic writing. Williams College restricts the use of undergraduate theses as follows:

Non-commercial, academic use within the scope of “Fair Use” standards is acceptable. Otherwise, you may not copy or distribute any content without the permission of the copyright holder.

Seems obvious enough. Yet some folks think that my use of thesis material in a blog post fails this test because it is not “academic.” See this post for the gory details.

Parenthetically, your readers might be interested in the substantive discovery here, the details of the Williams admissions process (which is probably very similar to Columbia’s). Williams places students into academic rating (AR) categories as follows:

verbal math composite SAT II ACT AP
AR 1: 770-800 750-800 1520-1600 750-800 35-36 mostly 5s
AR 2: 730-770 720-750 1450-1520 720-770 33-34 4s and 5s
AR 3: 700-730 690-720 1390-1450 690-730 32-33 4s

If you are below AR 2, you are rejected unless you have a very specific hook: the vast majority of which fall into just four categories: recruited athlete, legacy, under-represented minority or first generation college.

Anyway, the question is: Can blog postings fall under the category of academic writing even though they are not peer-reviewed or officially published? I think that the answer is Yes and that, therefore, my use of the undergraduate thesis does not fun afoul of Williams policy. But I would be curious to know what you and your readers think.

My reply: I don’t know anything about Williams policy but I have little sympathy for someone trying to restrict the discussion of a thesis on a blog! A thesis is public material and it would seem best for all concerned for any research to be accessible and discussed. I mean, sure, it wouldn’t be right to scan and post entire chapters without permission, but it doesn’t sound like you’re planning on doing that. The bit about “you may not copy or distribute any content without the permission . . .”–that just sounds ridiculous.

Also, I’m not sure how relevant it is whether the blog is commercial or academic. There’s some sort of continuous range, right? On one extreme is this blog right here. It’s non-commercial (we’ve in fact turned down requests to advertise) and it’s academic–actually hosted on a Columbia University computer. But what if we were not academic (if, for example, I worked at a company and hosted it on a server at home) or commercial (as with the many blogs that run a few ads). Or what if it were commercial and non-academic? For example, what if Slate magazine or the New York Times wanted to report some content from this undergraduate thesis? They wouldn’t need permission, right? At least, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to go to the library, read the thesis, and report what they find. (I’m not speaking of legalities here, just what seems reasonable to me.)

P.S. I followed the links and found this comment by “bfleming”:

There is — on top of any explicit textual restrictions — an informal scholarly norm of asking for permission before using unpublished material.

And commenter “dcatsam” writes:

I am working on a book. There is a Harvard undergraduate thesis that covers a portion of what I am doing, and it certainly deserves at least a citation. But the Harvard libraries explicitly state that it is not to be quoted or cited without the permission of the author. That “Fair Use” might or might not protect me I would NEVER quote or cite the thesis without permission.

I don’t see this. If someone emails me something, yes, I’ll ask for permission before blogging it. But if something is posted on the web, or in a library, I’d feel free to quote it (rather than, for example, reading it, giving a summary in my own words, and telling people where to find the exact words, the next time they happen to be in Massachusetts and have some free time). Also–and I say this without any knowledge of the contents of the work in question–I’m guessing that “dcatsam” is mistaken if he or she does not want people to quote and cite the undergraduate thesis that is under discussion. It would be good for these ideas (whatever they are) to be aired more generally, no?

16 thoughts on “Blogging: Is it “fair use”?

  1. The copyright-holder (Williams? the thesis writer?) does not get to decide what constitutes fair use — otherwise there'd be very little criticism or parody of copyrighted works. It sounds to me like the blogger would have a pretty strong case under the definition of fair use, but I am not a judge or a lawyer.
    It also sounds like Williams is maybe regretting how much they let the thesis student dig up about their admissions process, and now they're trying to keep that information from spreading further. Probably a bad idea (see Streisand Effect).

  2. I'll say that Kane doesn't come out of that exchange looking very good…

    But that aside, I disagree with you (Andrew) about citing unpublished work. Many, probably most unpublished manuscripts have a line about "please do not cite or circulate without author's permission" on them. I think that's a perfectly reasonable convention: We want people to be able to say stupid things in drafts, be corrected by commenters and not have their error cited.
    Honors theses are somewhere in a grey area, but since college seniors are _very_ inexperienced academically and do not expect honors theses to be particularly public, I do think it's good style – though, clearly, not legally required – to ask for permission before citing their unpublished thesis in a highly visible context, academic or not.

  3. It seems like this policy by the Harvard library is more about academic standards than it is about asserting copyright. I wouldn't expect an undergraduate thesis to be authoritative on its subject in the way a peer-reviewed article or Ph.D. dissertation would be. And so I would not consider an undergraduate thesis to be an appropriate citation in an academic context–similar to an article in Psychology Today, for example.

    I wonder if this policy is more to try to warn off journalists and others that may not be as fluent in these topics from citing something as proof point that is not well-vetted enough.

    The educational role of an undergraduate thesis is much different than a Ph.D. dissertation–upon reflection, I'm actually a little surprised that Harvard even archives them in the library.

  4. At UMass you needed to do an undergrad thesis to graduate with honors. In lots of fields, that's not an easy task. You've got one year to do all the research, on top of a regular course load, and its the first real research you've ever done. I chose a difficult topic, and my results were depressingly ambiguous. So I wrote the best paper I could in the circumstances. I learned a lot, I did the work, but I wouldn't stand behind any conclusions in that paper. In the time I had, I can't confidently say the code wasn't buggy, that I sufficiently explored the feature space, etc. I wouldn't want someone citing that paper as evidence of anything.

    I also wouldn't want people using it as a measure of my research/writing ability. And I don't know that the situation outside of hard sciences is any better: Some professors are thick headed, and expect you to express particular ideas in particular ways. Do you write what you honestly think, or what will get you the grade? And do you want that paper you wrote for the grade forever attached to your name on the internet? If a creator puts something out there, its absolutely fair game. But if at the end of the work they know it doesn't add to the public discourse, I see nothing wrong with them electing not to share it. If my thesis was forever going to come up when you googled my name, I'd have chosen a much easier (and more exciting sounding) topic, and probably learned a fraction of what I did desperately trying to get my experiments to work.

  5. Sebastian writes:

    Many, probably most unpublished manuscripts have a line about "please do not cite or circulate without author's permission" on them.

    At least in economics and statistics, only a (small?) minority of unpublished working papers have such a line, at least in the sub-fields that I read.

    But, in these particular cases, none of the works have such a line, so this isn't a direct concern. See here for further discussion.

    Sebastian: Do you always ask for permission before citing unpublished work if the work does not make such a request? Do you think this is (or should be) a scholarly norm?

    Thanks to Andrew for posting this. I look forward to more comments.

  6. Also, I would like to distinguish between two separate questions:

    1) Should Williams/Harvard require that students deposit their theses (whether these be senior, masters or Ph.D.) in the library so that others can read them? (I strongly feel they should but others may differ.)

    2) Given that Williams/Harvard have required theses to be placed in the library — and assuming that there is not a "Please do not quote" on the cover — do we have an obligation to treat this work (seek permission, be nice or whatever) any differently than we treat other work that we is available in the library? (This is the mean reason I wrote to Andrew.)

    I am most curious what other readers think about question 2).

  7. In response to David's two questions, my answers are Yes and No, respectively. But I agree with the several commenters who have pointed out that one shouldn't judge the contents of an undergraduate thesis to be as reliable as those of a PhD thesis or a peer-reviewed publication. It would be inappropriate — not, in my opinion, immoral, and hopefully not illegal, but definitely uncool — to ridicule a person or their work on the basis of their undergraduate thesis. And it would be unwise to make claims, in a blog or elsewhere, based on such work.

    Legally, I am no expert but I can read. The U.S. copyright office says courts have generally regarded the following as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

    A blog post, academic or otherwise, would normally fall under one of the first two categories, or the "news report" item, or perhaps two or more of those. I don't think you have to be a lawyer to interpret that.

  8. Many of the comments above don't apply to the case at issue. Perhaps undergraduate theses ought not to be quoted, since the author may not want their immature thoughts to be widely known. But in this case, such quotes are explicitly allowed in academic publications. Is it really less embarrassing for your silly undergrad thoughts to be quoted in Science or Nature rather than in a blog post?

    Given that quotes in some venues are allowed, it is not viable to prohibit them in other venues, if these other discussions are of a similar nature (eg, not an advertisement for some commercial product). Whether the discussion is in some officially sanctioned academic journal is irrelevant. "Academic" does not mean appearing in an academic journal, but rather academically motivated (eg, motivated by intellectual curiosity). Does anyone really think that after a paper is published in Nature that builds on the work in the undergraduate thesis, discussion of the paper on a blog should be prohibited if the requirements of the discussion necessitate quoting additional parts of the undergraduate thesis (which, for instance, might undermine the claims in the Nature paper)?

    Now in this case, there hasn't been a paper in Nature. But does that matter? Do the rights of the author of the undergraduate thesis depend on whether Nature decides to publish such a paper? This would be ridiculous.

    Either a thesis is out there, forming a part of the intellectual atmosphere, or it isn't. There is no half-way status.

  9. Mentioning some undergrad thesis on a blog is really a question of stewardship on the part of the blog owner. If the work is good enough, then let's make sure the student gets credit in front of an audience of specialists, if it is not so good, then it would seem to me that the blog owner has more to lose than anything else by featuring it. I am not sure that picking some substandard work for a straw man's argument would increase the reputation of the blog itself. Then, again not all blogs strive on being reputable within academic circles either.

    Two more items that may help in this discussion:

    First, the response from one of the author of the arsenide work featured in the news last week in Nature (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101207/full/468741a.html) where she says:

    "…[She] and the study's lead author, refused to address criticisms. "We are not going to engage in this sort of discussion," she wrote in an e-mail to Nature. "Any discourse will have to be peer-reviewed in the same manner as our paper was, and go through a vetting process so that all discussion is properly moderated."

    I can see how a non "academic" blog could distort a lot of the arguments presented in the paper, but for criticism to be peer-reviewed and go through a vetting process, I don't know what that means. Obviously, not everybody has the same conception of what it means to be peer-reviewed since the concept of a good blog being a non-anonymous source of review has not been articulate to many people yet.

    Second, as Phil pointed out the law should be easy to read but what do you do with parties that do not have your conception of fair use ? ( http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/democratic-u… it may be fair use to you, but how expensive is it going to be for you to affirm it? is really the question.

    Igor.

  10. Igor:

    Good points. I imagine what was meant was that Nature carries correspondence which may be used for discussion of published work. So, critics of the paper in question may submit their comments to Nature.

  11. Nicely put Radford – as that almost famous Quebec politician once put it

    "Like lobsters into boiling water: once in – there's no getting out"

    K?

  12. "Sebastian: Do you always ask for permission before citing unpublished work if the work does not make such a request? Do you think this is (or should be) a scholarly norm?"

    No. It's context dependent. I would not ask an economist who places one of his papers on his personal website, for example. I agree with you that would be weird.

    I think undergraduate theses are different because a) if I understand correctly they have no choice about having their thesis placed in the library (i.e. made 'non-public" and b) they have not been socialized fully into academia.
    For those reasons, yes, I would ask any undergraduate/BA for permission before citing thesis work unless it's been formally published.
    Essentially, for those types of works I'd go with a post-hoc rule: If Nurnberg is unhappy that you cited his honors thesis (_that_ you did not _how_ you did) I don't think you should have. If he's fine with it, so should everyone else. (Do we actually know in this case?) If you're not sure about what the post-hoc reaction is going to be – ask.

  13. In a tangential way, this question is very topical with the ongoing WikiLeaks controversy. Does the possessor of information have an inherent right to share that information, legally and morally?

    I think Radford has the right idea of "no middle ground in public discourse": once a paper is out there, it's out there. Once it's blogged about, cited by another paper, taken up in conversation it's fair game.

    However, I still take exception with the original publicizing of the paper (David's question #1). If somebody wants to keep something they wrote to themselves, they should be able to. If they email it to a colleague, they're accepting the risk it'll get publicized. But in the student example, there is no option (or its an option under duress: weighing graduation/graduation with honors against non-publication). In the case where the student did not have a choice in the matter, I think it's proper, at least for the initial publication, to obtain their consent. Again, after its initial foray into the public sphere it's fair game, but that first act of pulling it in should be consensual. I can't speak to how relevant this is to this case, and I'm speaking morally not legally, but I dislike obligating people to make a statement.

  14. Igor: criticism to be peer-reviewed means getting a letter to the editor – actually by the editor.

    As I was once told – if you believe you have found something wrong in our paper, you can send a letter to the editor – don't bother me and my co-authors with the details.

    Its a great defensive move in the sort run.

    On the other hand peer review does "safen" the process somewhat.

    K?

  15. Understanding what goes on behind the closed doors of elite colleges' admissions departments is crucial to understanding American society in the 21st Century, yet there is remarkably little wholly frank information on the subject. David Kane should be congratulated for increasing public understanding of this crucial subject.

  16. Thanks for all the comments. For those who did not have the time to look closely at the original post, keep in mind:

    1) The main portions of the student's thesis have been incorporated in an NBER working paper, written with his advisors. So, this is definitely work that the student is (rightly!) proud of.

    2) I don't quote anything related to the student's main result. His main contribution is to provide a model for estimating whether or not an admitted student will choose to matriculate at Williams. I don't talk about that at all. The only portions I reference discuss the details of the admissions process at Williams. In fact, 95% of what I use just involves material from a official Williams document that the student discusses in his thesis.

    3) Thanks to Sebastian for suggesting a "post-hoc rule." I will contact Nurnberg and report back to you.

    Again, thanks to Andrew for posting this. I appreciate the comments.

Comments are closed.