[Taxacom] Sale: immortal names

[Doug Yanega]

On 7/6/15 8:29 AM, John Grehan wrote:
> Otherwise it would appear that the option is limited
> to those who are technically amateurs - assuming the named specimen is not
> from an institution such as a museum that 'owned' the specimen (presuming
> that this entitled them to any proceeds - wonder if that is a caveat on any
> loan forms?) - and assuming that the receiving institution is willing to
> accept the specimen without some of the proceeds.
>
Since I've talked extensively about this in the past, including a 
symposium presentation, I've watched the thread and so far refrained 
from commenting. The point above, however, is one that is very 
troublesome and needs to be explored. This issue HAS arisen on at least 
a few occasions, and while it's not by any means a legal precedent, 
here's how things have unfolded in these examples:

(1) Researcher borrows specimens from collections X, Y, and Z, as part 
of their revisionary work.

(2) In addition to the revisionary work, the researcher sells/auctions 
names based upon these specimens.

(3) Researcher uses all of the proceeds to supplement his own 
institutional support, or related activities like hiring a student, or 
donates the proceeds to charity.

Do collections X, Y, and Z deserve a portion of those proceeds?

In the examples I'm aware of, the researchers have neither asked for 
permission, nor shared any of the proceeds, and the loaning institutions 
have done nothing, nor had any clauses in the loan forms. In one case 
where I did inquire, out of curiosity, the comment I got back was 
(paraphrased) along these lines:

"When a researcher is funded by NSF to do a revision using our 
specimens, we don't ask for a portion of the grant; we just loan the 
specimens. I'm not sure we'd have any legal grounds for making a 
distinction between a traditional research loan like that, which has no 
strings attached, versus a loan that is used for fund-raising /on top 
of/ the actual research."

Evidently, the rarity of such examples means that few, if any, 
institutions have seen fit to implement specific policies that would 
restrict a borrower's ability to use loaned material as a source of 
extra revenue without prior approval, but I'm not sure that is going to 
remain true if it becomes a more common practice. That being said, we 
have to consider the larger picture here, and that's why I'm posting.

One of the oldest of all scientific traditions is the free international 
exchange of specimens, and anything that might infringe on this will 
turn into a "slippery slope" scenario. Viewed externally (by 
non-scientists), this tradition is actually quite amazing - it is 
something altruistic in a world that is full of competition, in an 
academic environment that is increasingly strapped for funds. I know I'm 
not alone in seeing the irony here; museums and herbaria being closed or 
laying off staff (in part because the administrators under whose 
umbrella they fall decide they are not profitable), while those same 
collections are, in a very literal sense, a major part of the scientific 
economy. Without specimens, millions of dollars in research grants would 
cease to be awarded. The thing is, the places that house the specimens 
and the places that benefit from these grants *are generally not the 
same places*. Almost no one does taxonomic research that is 100% 
"in-house" - *something* has to come from other institutions, even if 
it's only type specimens. You can't explain this sort of cooperative 
network to an administrator whose vision does not extend beyond the 
facility they control. If you do, and they grasp how it works, the most 
likely response is going to be predictable: "Well, that's bad business 
practice - obviously we need to start charging a fee for people to 
borrow our specimens". The result of that, also predictably, would be 
that no one would borrow your specimens any more, since (a) researchers 
don't have funds in their grants to cover that, and (b) there are other 
places they can still borrow material for free.

The exact same reasoning would apply to institutions that attempt to 
make their loans subject to "profit-sharing"; a researcher looking to 
auction names is going to preferentially borrow from places that *don't* 
require a cut of the profits. The converse could also come to pass, as 
well; namely, that a collection would be motivated to run *their own 
auctions*, and if they can make money from it, then they'll be motivated 
to *refuse to send out loans* any more. Furthermore, what happens if 
some researchers voluntarily share profits and others don't? Maybe 
collections will start to selectively make loans, or offer incentives to 
people like that. Like I said, a slippery slope.

I have to be honest, I've been thinking hard about this for over a 
decade, and don't see a good way for this to work within the traditional 
framework. At a bare minimum it would require some sort of international 
agreement (on the scale of CITES) for which all the world's museums 
would need to be signatories, which would specify a fixed and 
objectively-determined method of profit-sharing, with legally-binding 
contracts that are signed by both parties in ALL specimen loans - but 
many institutions would probably view such an agreement as unacceptable, 
either in principle, or in practice. Would such an initiative have any 
chance of success? I'm skeptical. Yet, that leaves us with the status 
quo, and that's not a stable situation, and the alternative paths look 
bad. A blanket prohibition on auctions would equate with the old adage 
about "cutting off your nose to spite your face", and do no one any good 
at all, but allowing auctions to proceed unrestricted stands to 
seriously interfere with the scientific tradition, since it might well 
result in certain collections being cut out of the research community 
(if people won't or can't borrow from them any more), or certain 
researchers being ostracized (if they make enough money that they become 
notorious for not sharing, and people stop giving them loans). It is 
inevitable, after all, that if people start to make serious amounts of 
money doing this, there will eventually be conflict between the haves 
and the have-nots - and the community will suffer, at a time when we can 
ill afford it. Pandora's Box, anyone?

Sincerely,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82