On April 18, two topics of CNKI rushed to Weibo's hot search, both related to the suspension of CNKI by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Recently, a screenshot widely circulated on the Internet shows that the email of the "Literature and Information Center" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences angrily pointed out that the renewal fee of nearly "tens of millions" of CNKI has become a "Big Mac" in the introduction of resources by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Group, and is considering deactivating the CNKI database.
Subsequently, a teacher in charge of implementing the matter in the Library Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences publicly stated that the incident was true and said that the CNKI database would be deactivated from April 20, 2022. At least this year, there should be no plans to resume access to CNKI. However, CNKI said in an interview with the media that the news was untrue.
In terms of time finance and economics, an employee of the company said that the company will have someone to respond specifically, but as of press time, it has not been replied to.
It is reported that the operating entity of CNKI is Tongfang CNKI (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tongfang CNKI"), which is a 100% shareholding subsidiary of Tongfang Shares (600100) of the listed company. Time Finance contacted Tongfang Shares, as of press time, has not received a reply.
In response to CNKI's high-priced renewal fee, some netizens questioned, "Why didn't they give me a penny back after my paper was included in CNKI?" "To know that there is a fee for downloading the papers written by oneself on the Internet" "The world's students have been suffering for a long time" "Is it suspected of monopoly?" Does it have a monopoly position? ”
Zhang Yue, a lawyer at Beijing Jing'an Law Firm, told Time Finance that copyright is divided into personal rights and property rights, personal rights are exclusive to the author, and property rights can be transferred or licensed. For copyright platforms such as CNKI, the author authorizes the property rights of copyright to CNKI, and CNKI has the right to disseminate and provide paid downloads. For CNKI, users need to pay for downloading or watching articles, and the fees charged are shared with the author.
High prices "dissuaded" many colleges and universities
According to the listed company, Tongfang CNKI is mainly engaged in Internet publishing and service business, and has formed a "CNKI" (CNKI) portal, providing users with a series of products such as "China Knowledge Resources Database", "China Academic Journals Database", "China Doctoral And Master's Thesis Database", "China Yearbook Full-text Database", "China Reference Book Network Publishing Library" and a series of products, as well as Internet search, sharing and network publishing services for knowledge resources.
In fact, most of the undergraduate students and above in the school, as well as teachers and researchers, are inseparable from CNKI, download reference papers, check weights, and some schools also use CNKI to verify whether the student's graduation thesis has been sent.
Such a platform with a huge impact on the academic circle has recently been criticized. It is reported that downloading articles from CNKI is usually 0.5 yuan / page for regular literature download, 15 yuan / book for master's thesis, and 25 yuan / book for doctoral dissertation.
"Who has not asked a student to write a thesis after graduation, it is because they can't afford to buy a CNKI account." Xiao Yan is currently teaching at the school after graduating with a doctorate, and before she graduated from undergraduate and graduate school, she was crazy to download Tun reference materials, because she did not have a cnki account in this period after graduation and before she enrolled, and she could only ask her brothers and sisters to help download it.
Usually, in order to facilitate students to view reference materials on CNKI, the school will spend money to purchase CNKI databases. According to the Chinese government procurement network, recently, Northwest University for Nationalities purchased the "CNKI" series database at a price of 964,500 yuan, Hebei Medical University purchased the CNKI series database for 430,000 yuan, and Nanning Vocational and Technical College renewed the CNKI database for 611,800 yuan.
Before the Chinese Academy of Sciences was overwhelmed and did not renew its contract, Peking University also published a notice on its official website that CNKI was about to be deactivated. As early as the beginning of 2016, Wuhan University of Technology issued a relevant statement on the official Weibo, saying, "Since 2000, CNKI's quotations to our school have increased by more than 10% every year, from 2010 to 2016 (quotations) rose by 132.86%, and the average annual increase was 18.986%. "Due to the outrageous renewal price, Wuhan University of Technology does not renew CNKI. However, the school subsequently announced the resumption of the opening of the CNKI database.
At the same time as the high fee, when CNKI collects papers, most of the authors do not know. At the end of 2021, Zhao Dexin, an 89-year-old retired professor, sued CNKI for reprinting more than 160 of its articles without authorization and charging for downloading them herself. Zhao Dexin defended her rights for 8 years, and finally won more than 160 articles in infringement disputes, and the compensation income was more than 700,000 yuan.
In 2019, the China Character Copyright Association (hereinafter referred to as the China Literary Copyright Association) sued China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition) Electronic Magazine Co., Ltd. and Tongfang CNKI for infringement of the copyright of Wang Zengqi's work "Ordination", and the court of second instance ordered the two defendants to immediately stop the infringement; the academic journal company compensated the literary association for economic losses of 10,000 yuan, and Tongfang CNKI Company was jointly and severally liable for compensation for 2,000 yuan The two defendants jointly compensated the Authors Association for reasonable expenses of $10,000.
Received high government subsidies many times
The world's students have been suffering from the network for a long time, why can't they get rid of CNKI?
CNKI once said in public information that CNKI is already the largest integrator of academic electronic resources in China, including more than 95% of the officially published Chinese academic resources, and its market share in domestic universities has reached 100%.
In this regard, the issue of whether CNKI is suspected of monopoly has attracted attention. According to the Yangtze River Daily, on March 9, the Anti-Monopoly Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation replied, "The State Administration for Market Regulation is verifying the study." ”
Interestingly, CNKI's growth into a research platform with the advantage of living alone is not a complete product of market competition, but is inseparable from the support of relevant policies. In April 1999, the main project of CNKI was listed as a national torch plan project. In October 1999, five ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Administration of Taxation, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, the State Administration of Quality and Technical Supervision, and the State Environmental Protection Administration, rated CAJ-CD (Full-text CD-ROM and Data Warehouse of Chinese Academic Journals) as a "National Key New Product" project. On this basis, at the end of 2004, Tongfang CNKI (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established.
Up to now, Tongfang CNKI is still receiving government subsidies. According to an announcement by Tongfang Shares in December 2021, Tongfang CNKI Digital Publishing Technology Co., Ltd. received financial subsidies of 4 million yuan, and from December 19 to December 31, 2020, Tongfang CNKI received financial subsidies such as scientific research project subsidies of 42.2376 million yuan. According to the financial report, in 2020, the government subsidy of Tongfang shares included in the profit and loss of the current period was as high as 200 million yuan.
In terms of revenue, the financial report of Tongfang shares shows that in the whole year of 2020, the main business income of Tongfang CNKI was 1.168 billion yuan, the net profit attributable to the mother was 193 million yuan, and the gross profit margin was 53.93%. In contrast, the parent company Tongfang Shares achieved operating income of 25.907 billion yuan and net profit of 103 million yuan in 2020, about half of CNKI's profit.
In the first half of 2021, the main business income of Tongfang CNKI was 496 million yuan, the net profit attributable to the mother was 18.927 million yuan, and the gross profit margin was 51.30%. Parent company Tongfang Shares had revenue of 11.262 billion yuan and net profit of -527 million yuan in the first half of 2021.
For content contributors and consumers, CNKI has long deviated from the original intention of its establishment. "Removing the shelves without free (giving it to use) shows that CNKI only wants to make profits and has not undertaken the obligation of the literature platform to promote the public dissemination of knowledge." Zhao Dexin, who fought a lawsuit with CNKI, publicly stated that he believes that if he really wants to promote the exchange of knowledge, CNKI should not take down his articles, but should consider how to fundamentally solve this problem. ”
However, the phenomenon of academic databases diverging from academic circles is not unique. Elsevier, the world's academic journal giant, has also encountered resistance from world-renowned universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California system in the United States, as well as many top scientists around the world. (Beijing Time Finance Chen Shiai)