Michael asked:

I am an undergraduate philosophy student, and I very much desire to earn my PhD and become a
professor. I am concerned that my moral convictions may get in the way, however. I don't believe
that, for the most part, intellectual property enforcement is morally acceptable, and it would be a
violation of my personal code of ethics to grant anyone one an exclusive right to any papers I
produce. My question is, are there universities and reputable journals that don't demand exclusivity?
Even if the way is not easy, can I advance in academia without compromising my principles?

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I am quite sympathetic to your views.

There is a huge movement for open access to journals, articles, and other material. Stevan Harnad is
one of the prime people in this. Look here: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/; you will find all sorts
of open access resources.

Now. That's one way of getting papers out, and I use it myself. But it's nota good way to get
published. For that you need to be in reputable, peer-reviewed journals, and they areexclusive. So
what I do is put a preliminary version out on the free site and the final version in the journal. That way,
no one can complain... I hope. Technically, we have not submitted the same article to the journal and
the site. In addition, ethically, the site is nota journal, notpeer-reviewed, and indeed asks for the
journals the article waspublished in. So you have not abused the peer-review process in putting your
article in Harnad's site. But you do need to publish in "normal" zines to get recognition.

Steven Ravett Brown