"Knowledge" is very expensive CNKI is very profitable

Figure: Figure worm

Source: 21tech

Author: Tao Li

Editor: Zhang Weixian

CNKI is once again on the cusp of the storm.

On March 9, in response to the problems existing on CNKI, the Anti-Monopoly Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation left a message on the reply to the reporter's online message: "The State Administration for Market Regulation is verifying and studying. ”

Previously, a number of scholars and professors spoke out and put forward specific suggestions on CNKI's problems in intellectual property rights. Miao Zhenlin, deputy chief engineer of Xiangneng Hualei Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. and director of the Technology Research and Development Center, called on relevant ministries and commissions to make overall planning and investment funds from the national level, establish a co-construction and sharing mechanism as soon as possible, break geographical restrictions and platform barriers, achieve full coverage of scientific and technological literature resources, and avoid waste of innovation resources and repeated investment.

"Buying a database of scientific and technological literature is often costing millions of yuan, which is not the expense that enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, can afford, and the key is that a single database is often not enough to meet the demand." Miao Zhenlin said that he often asked partner universities and other institutions for assistance in foreign language journals, but this is not a long-term solution.

According to public information, CNKI was initiated by Tsinghua University and Tsinghua Tongfang in June 1999. In 2020, CNKI's main business income was 1.168 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company was about 193 million yuan, with a gross profit margin of 53.93%. In the first half of 2021, the company's main business income was 496 million yuan, the net profit attributable to the mother was 18.927 million yuan, and the gross profit margin was 51.30%.

Such a high gross profit margin is rare. A number of university research practitioners also admitted in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that THE PAID OPERATION METHOD OF CNKI has greatly increased the cost of scientific research and violated the essence of scientific research literature sharing. "Selling scientific research has become the first purpose, not the dissemination of knowledge. This is not advisable. ”

"Master's thesis remuneration 60 yuan"

Last year, Zhao Dexin, a ninety-year-old professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, sued CNKI for rights protection, which received widespread attention after being reported by the Yangtze River Daily. "I included more than 100 articles in the database, and also spread them through the ports of computers and mobile phones, not only did not tell me, readers including my own downloads had to pay, but I myself never got a penny of manuscript fees."

In the end, the old man chose to defend his rights, and the result was that he won all the lawsuits, accumulating more than 700,000 yuan in compensation. Since then, CNKI has removed all of Professor Zhao Dexin's articles, and has not assumed the obligation of the literature platform to promote the public dissemination of knowledge.

At the second instance, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court stated that the unilateral statement of the journal through the manuscript contract was not enough to prove that the authorization and sub-authorization of the information network dissemination right of the works involved in the case had been obtained from the author.

There are not a few copyright holders who have a common encounter with Professor Zhao Dexin. A search by a 21st Century Business Herald reporter on the China Judgment Documents Network found that there were hundreds of civil judgments on China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition) Electronic Magazine Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of CNKI), all of which involved infringement disputes such as the right to disseminate information on the Internet and the ownership of copyrights.

In fact, consulting scientific and technological literature and mastering strategic information resources such as cutting-edge technologies and industry dynamics in the field are the basic needs of scientific researchers and the daily life of scientific researchers. However, the current surge in the total amount of scientific and technological literature, high prices, few foreign language journals, and poor service pertinence have also caused headaches for scientific research practitioners.

"My papers can be searched on CNKI, but I have never received any benefits. CNKI monopolizes the entire domestic scientific research literature database, from the graduation thesis of graduate students in various universities to the core journal papers. The database needs to be purchased to obtain reading permissions, which can be purchased for the entire database or for a single article. And the need for special software to read the literature, all bring inconvenience. A professor at Zhejiang University told the 21st Century Business Herald that this has become a huge obstacle to the acquisition of literature for small colleges that do not have the ability to purchase a complete database.

Because whether it is from the acquisition of new scientific research knowledge, or the writing of papers, it is inseparable from the support of scientific research literature. Often a research-oriented article requires extensive citations from published literature. At the same time, copyright income is unknown to the authors of the literature.

Compared with the millions of royalties, CNKI pays authors a fairly low remuneration for manuscript fees.

A notice on the website entitled "Notice on Receiving Dissertation Remuneration from The Electronic Magazine of Chinese Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition)" shows that for the remuneration after the publication of the dissertation, the copyright holder of the doctoral dissertation receives a one-time "CNKI Network Database Universal Search Reading Card" with a face value of 400 yuan and a cash remuneration of 100 yuan; the copyright holder of the master's thesis obtains a one-time "CNKI Network Database Universal Search Reading Card" with a face value of 300 yuan and a cash remuneration of 60 yuan.

Previously, the download cost of the master's degree dissertation on the platform was 15 yuan / book, and the download cost of the doctoral dissertation was 25 yuan / book, which also made many netizens call "unaffordable".

At the end of last year, CNKI lowered the download price of master's and doctoral dissertations, and the download cost of master's and doctoral dissertations is now 7.5 yuan / book and 9.5 yuan / book, respectively.

Call for greater sharing

In fact, China has long established a national science and technology book and documentation center, and at present, many provinces and cities have established a science and technology literature sharing service platform to provide knowledge services such as information retrieval services and intelligence analysis. There are also Wanwang and Weipu paper checking systems on the market that can provide similar services. However, due to limited resources, most platforms do not meet the requirements.

Miao Zhenlin believes that it is difficult for innovative subjects to facilitate access to relevant materials, mainly because the platforms between various places have not yet formed a platform for co-construction and sharing, and with the surge in the total amount of scientific and technological literature, it is increasingly difficult for a single scientific and technological literature resource service platform to have the ability and financial resources to collect and collect all scientific and technological literature resources.

This time, the controversy over whether CNKI is suspected of monopoly has re-emerged, and the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation said in response to netizens' comments as early as December 23 last year that the mainland's Anti-Monopoly Law prohibits business operators with dominant market positions from abusing their dominant market positions. Whether the conduct of the relevant business operator violates the Anti-Monopoly Law requires the Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement Agency to study and analyze the specific evidence and make a judgment through the corresponding procedures.

Therefore, whether it is a monopoly still needs to be verified and studied by the relevant departments. Xie Wenmin, director of Hubei Shouyi Law Firm, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that CNKI's publication of works without the permission of copyright owners violates the Copyright Law, and the national administrative department should speed up the top-level design to standardize and guide the healthy and orderly development of such websites in China. If the author himself downloads his own work and pays for it, it means that the competition in this industry is disorderly. As an academic database platform, CNKI has the right to collect works, but the premise should be based on the consent of the copyright owner, and the two parties should negotiate the distribution of benefits in accordance with the contract specifications.

With the advancement of big data technology, users' needs for scientific and technological information resources are also more diversified and refined, which also poses challenges to the integration ability of platform information resources, information retrieval systems, and intelligence information services. A number of professionals called for strengthening the public welfare of the public science and technology literature sharing platform, and actively promoting the basic service functions of scientific and technological literature retrieval and literature access such as journal papers, dissertations, patents, and scientific and technological achievements, so as to better meet the general needs of scientific researchers, students and science and technology enthusiasts.

Luo Li, an associate researcher at the Institute of Information Of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the 21st Century Business Herald that whether CNKI is suspected of monopoly needs further investigation by the State Administration of Market Regulation, and relevant departments should strengthen supervision. But at present, it is more important for CNKI and similar platforms to further reduce the charging standards and make knowledge more accessible in a cheaper situation, that is, the universalization of knowledge. "CNKI can cooperate more with public libraries, university libraries and primary and secondary school libraries, so that more citizens and students can use and benefit!"

Editor: Lu Taoran