Self-Plagiarizing Prostitutes: Limiting the Need to Repeat Oneself?

I argue that the present allocation of copyright between author and publisher is neither a good deterrence against self-plagiarism nor the main determinant of the market power of publishers. While deterrence is left to “naming and shaming”, market power strictly depends on the use of quantitative indicators in the evaluation of research. The efficacy of naming and shaming go hand in hand with publishers’ market power. However, the incentives against self-plagiarism are counteracted by even stronger incentives following the pressure from rankings, which have transformed research into a competition for positional goods. Finding alternative (additional) ways to evaluate research would solve both problems of publishers’ market power and self-plagiarism. In the near future this looks unlikely, since unilaterally abandoning the system would be too costly for the individual institution.