These two days, an old professor from Zhongnan University of economics and law is very busy. Colleagues, students, reporters visit or telephone interview... His schedule is full. The old professor is 90 years old and his name is Zhao Dexin. He was noticed because of another progress in the dispute over China HowNet. On May 13, Xinhua News Agency reported that recently, according to the preliminary verification, the State Administration of market supervision filed a case for investigation on the suspected monopoly of HowNet according to law.
Previously, in order to "fight" with HowNet, Zhao Dexin made preparations for six years to collect his personal published articles since 1952, especially the examples of being included by HowNet and other platforms but refusing to pay.
Statistics show that HowNet has included more than 100 articles published by him, and finally won the lawsuit, with a compensation of more than 700000 yuan.
Encouraged by Zhao Dexin, his wife Zhou xiuluan also sued HowNet, and finally received a compensation of nearly 100000 yuan. Zhou xiuluan is also a retired professor at Zhongnan University of economics and law, aged 93.
Zhao Dexin and Zhou xiuluan
"We're not for money," Zhao Dexin said. "Our couple are full professors. Our two daughters and nephews have higher incomes than us. We have no pursuit of food and clothing, just fighting for breath!"
Professor Zhao Dexin said he was very happy to learn about the legal investigation of the knowledge network by relevant departments. He hopes that a fully competitive market can prevent one from dominating in the future.
26 yuan download fee
The decision to file a lawsuit starts with a download fee of 26 yuan.
Zhao Dexin told nanfengchuang that in 2016, at the request of the publishing house, he revised and republished the dictionary of Chinese economic history published in the 1990s.
The book revision group is composed of more than 20 professors and associate professors. Zhao Dexin needs to download this book published earlier, and then distribute it to more than 20 members of the revision group for reference and suggestions.
Zhao Dexin asked the students to download it. The students reported that it costs 26 yuan to download a copy from HowNet. "I want to use my book and give you 26 yuan? Why?" Zhao Dexin wondered: "when the book was published, the price was only 17.5 yuan!"
Later, he remembered something ten years ago, that is, in 2006, HowNet sent him a cooperation contract. It was agreed that HowNet included his book and asked him to authorize it. Each time he downloaded it, he would be paid about 1.3 yuan. At the same time, he was asked to fill in his own ID card number and bank card number to facilitate the payment.
Notice on the remuneration of dissertations on HowNet, and the release time of this notice is October 2016
The bank card is still in use, but the bank flow shows that no amount of money has come from HowNet in the past ten years.
Zhao Dexin is not happy.
"You have taken away my knowledge and labor for ten years without giving me a penny. As a result, I downloaded my own things. You still want me 26 yuan per copy?" Zhao Dexin said: "do not respect creation, do not respect labor."
Zhao Dexin found in the Internet search that in the 70 years since he published his articles in 1952, more than 100 articles have been privately included by HowNet.
Zhao Dexin did not survive some publications that published articles. Subsequently, Zhao Dexin collected a series of original evidence through the library and archives of Zhongnan University of economics and law, as well as the library of Wuhan University and the local chronicles of Hubei Province.
Professor Zhao Dexin (source: Jimu News)
If the joint signature is involved, Zhao Dexin asks the other party to sign and authorize to file a lawsuit. But some relatively young or incumbent professors are afraid to sign.
"Those who don't sign mainly have three fears," Zhao Dexin told nanfengchuang: "first, they are afraid that their articles will be taken off the HowNet, second, they are afraid that the newly published articles will not be included by the HowNet, and third, they are afraid that the journals will no longer publish their articles."
Zhao Dexin said that many journals cooperated with HowNet. During the period of safeguarding rights, he received calls from the chief editor of some journals, hoping that he would withdraw the lawsuit and not inform HowNet.
Zhao Dexin, as one of the pioneers in the discipline of Chinese economic history, has enough reputation. He is 90 years old and does not need to evaluate the professional title, so he can push back the pressure.
Professor Zhou xiuluan explained his original intention of safeguarding rights in a handwritten letter to the reporter of Changjiang Daily
One reason why Zhao Dexin didn't listen to advice was that he felt the toughness and hegemony of HowNet.
"HowNet is very tough." Zhao Dexin said that the Internet court stipulates that no more than four articles can be sued each time. I have sued more than 100 articles for more than 20 times, but after losing each batch, HowNet appealed each batch.
This makes the process tortuous and long. "If the first batch of appeals is understandable, but there are precedents in front, and you still do so in each batch later, you are deliberately tossing people. Fortunately, I am tough, otherwise, I can't survive them."
Of course, there are coping strategies, and some topics are completed by him and his wife Zhou xiuluan. In this way, he authorized Zhou xiuluan to sue simultaneously and shorten the process.
On average, the remuneration standard of the article claim is 200 yuan per thousand words. Zhao Dexin's article is very long, so she won a compensation of more than 700000 yuan.
"This includes attorney fees and identification fees. It's more than 300000 when you really get it." Zhao Dexin said.
Why don't intellectuals speak
After Zhao Dexin and his wife won the lawsuit and attracted the attention of the media, many people in the intellectual community are also reflecting: why don't intellectuals speak?
"In the face of obvious injustice, why don't intellectuals stand up? Instead, they rely on several old people to stand up?" Zhao Dexin said that if young teachers are afraid to speak out because of various concerns, why don't so many old professors all over the country come out to speak? The key is the sense of responsibility.
The deeper reflection is: why is HowNet here?
As China's knowledge infrastructure project, in the 23 years since its establishment and development in 1999, HowNet has mainly created the platform by intellectuals, created the content by intellectuals, and finally served the exchange and operation of knowledge.
"Originally, we were the same kind of people, but in the end, there was differentiation and alienation within us, which turned into a naked relationship of exploitation and being exploited." Zhao Dexin said, "HowNet used our labor at a low price or even for free, and reselled it to us at a high price."
In the face of the growing HowNet, subject to factors such as the fear that articles will not be included when evaluating professional titles, most intellectuals remain silent about many unfair terms existing in the HowNet.
Zhao Dexin doesn't want the HowNet to fall down. He hopes it can "build and manage the knowledge platform according to the principles of socialist market economy".
"If you use the author's articles, you should pay a certain remuneration. Users should also pay a certain fee for downloading articles from the website." Zhao Dexin said that however, the profits obtained by the platform should comply with the national policy, and there should be no current "eating at both ends", or even huge profits, which have soared every year.
China HowNet member · traffic billing standard table
The silence of most people also triggered the thinking of lawyer Guo Bing.
Lawyer Guo Bing is also a distinguished associate professor of the school of law and politics of Zhejiang University of technology. On October 18, 2021, Guo Bing received a short message from the seventh procuratorial department of Jiangsu Provincial People's Procuratorate, saying that his submitted paper has passed the preliminary evaluation and needs to provide a duplicate inspection report of the paper.
This triggered a lawsuit between him and HowNet.
Only when the service platform of "zhibing.com" is checked by the users of "zhibing.com", can they know that the "zhibing.com" is not available to the academic service department of each school, and only when the "zhibing.com" is checked by the users of the "zhibing.com" service, can they know that the "zhibing.com" service department is not available to them every year, Teachers can only get the "duplicate checking" service of HowNet through the school library and pay a certain fee.
Guo Bing finally had to pay the corresponding "duplicate checking" service fee to the school library, and the library staff replaced him.
In an interview with nanfengchuang on May 14, Guo Bing said that after experiencing the "duplicate inspection" service, he believed that HowNet was suspected of abusing its dominant market position.
According to him, this mainly includes refusing to open academic misconduct detection system services to individual users without justified reasons, limiting the use of academic misconduct detection system services by unit personnel through obviously unreasonable contract terms, and damaging their legitimate rights and interests. According to the relevant provisions of Article 17 of the anti monopoly law, he decided to sue HowNet to protect their rights for public welfare through litigation.
At present, the court has also accepted this, and the hearing time is to be determined.
In the process of collecting relevant evidence, Guo Bing was very puzzled. He said: "some universities or research institutions pay tens of millions of fees to HowNet every year, and the service contracts signed are very unfair. HowNet raises prices sharply every year for no reason. In the face of this abuse of market dominance, why can't universities and other research institutions stand up and object to or complain to the regulatory authorities, except that they have no choice but to stop or suspend their use?"
"Silence is not normal. The biggest loss of silence in Colleges and universities is students." Guo Bing said that every year, just for the need of duplicate examination of graduation thesis, the expenditure of each student is hundreds or even thousands of yuan, which is a very huge amount.
Clamped by the platform
"Teachers must do scientific research, otherwise they can't get the title." Zhang Bin (a pseudonym), a professor in a university, said in an interview with nanfengchuang that when looking for a topic for a paper, in order to judge whether the content and angle are innovative, before writing, the teacher usually inquires whether someone has written the relevant paper and makes a comprehensive research and judgment on the topic.
In addition, after the article is written, it also needs to check the duplicate through HowNet and other channels.
Zhang Bin said that HowNet is China's knowledge base, which is like a basket. It contains almost all articles published in journals, covering universities, research institutions and other fields. To do research, involving literature, references, citations, etc., we must use it.
China HowNet Homepage
"Now, when evaluating professional titles, some colleges and universities clearly need to provide screenshots of HowNet's collection of published papers." Zhang Bin said, "not included, indicating that the influence is not enough."
In addition, after mastering a large number of articles and data, according to big data analysis, HowNet will continue to establish "influence factors" for colleges and universities or research institutions according to the article download rate, click through rate and citation rate, so as to judge the quality of professor's papers.
"Intellectuals need this platform to voice and expand their influence, which is also clamped down by the platform." Zhang Bin said that we did not speak out about this kind of obvious injustice and unreasonable charges rising by 10% or more every year, not because it is acceptable, but because it is not individuals who pay, but institutions.
In addition, the professor may encounter articles off the shelf after making a sound, which will bring losses to himself.
"This is the platform's biggest threat and revenge against intellectuals." Zhao Dexin said that after the couple won the lawsuit, HowNet took his and his wife's articles off the shelves, but they didn't care. "Young teachers have to be afraid out of the needs of real survival and development."
"The young professor supported me in doing so (suing HowNet), but was afraid of doing so." Zhao Dexin said that his heart is very contradictory and tangled.
Huang Ying (a pseudonym) is the Deputy librarian of an ordinary university library. She told nanfengchuang that there are about 20000 college students in her university. According to the requirements of the higher authorities, four books are added per capita every year, and 20000 students need to add 80000 books, ranging from 50-70 yuan per book, and the cost ranges from 4 million yuan to 5.6 million yuan.
"Every year, just the investment in HowNet, our library spends more than 1 million yuan to provide discipline services for teachers." Huang Ying said, "HowNet is very strong. At the end of the year, the contract was sent, and the terms were all prepared. It is almost the other party's the final say. We have no say."
As can be seen from the China government procurement website, Beijing Language and Culture University renewed its subscription to CNKI database at a price of 654600 yuan in 2022
"The more than 1 million yuan is only the cost of knowledge base paid to HowNet. The duplicate checking system is also in the charge of the academic affairs office and the graduate school." Huang Ying said that the duplicate checking system for undergraduates is in the academic affairs office, while those for postgraduates are in the graduate school. They are purchased separately and are not within the scope of Library procurement.
The school's duplicate checking system is only responsible for the inquiry after the students' graduation thesis is finalized, which can be used as the basis for the defense of the thesis and the issuance of graduation certificate. But before that, students will check the duplicate through various channels in the first draft and after each modification, so as to avoid failing to hand in unqualified products and being unable to get their graduation certificate.
"Each college graduate brings hundreds of yuan of expenses. Due to the large number of words in the thesis, postgraduates have greater pressure to avoid duplication of content." Huang Ying said that the number of inquiries is also more, and the expenditure is more than that of undergraduates.
On May 13, shortly after the State Administration of market supervision reported on the issue of HowNet, HowNet announced that, "We will take this investigation as an opportunity to conduct profound self-examination, comprehensive self-examination, complete rectification, operate in accordance with the law, innovate the development model, assume the social responsibility of China's knowledge infrastructure, strive to build HowNet into a world-class academic resource information platform with Chinese characteristics, promote academic communication and exchange, promote national scientific and technological innovation, and provide better services for the majority of authors and readers."
On May 13, HowNet issued an announcement
However, based on HowNet's previous "habitual attitude", the media industry takes a cautious attitude towards this.
"The HowNet, which has been criticized for many years but has been standing still, has finally been checked." On May 14, banyuetan pointed out in its comments that the news was "praised by all parties", and the comment area was full of jubilation, which well explained the aspirations of the people.
But banyuetan also mentioned, "whether the rectification of HowNet will succeed or not must be evaluated by users. Don't cheer too early, let's wait and see!"
On the investigation of HowNet, the people's daily also sent two comments in a row on its official microblog.
At 19:44 on May 13, the people's daily commented that in recent years, HowNet has been swept into the forefront of the storm for many times. Although HowNet has repeatedly said that it will "reflect on rectification", the voice of doubt is still surging and is becoming more and more intense. If you want to calm down the storm of HowNet, let the law intervene. It remains to be seen where the HowNet will go. But in any case, whether HowNet is monopolized or not, it's time to have a clear statement. "Knowing" and correcting mistakes can not only be in the mouth, but also in action.
At 23:28 on May 13, the people's daily commented again that the suspected monopoly was filed for investigation by the regulatory authorities. HowNet responded that it "conducted a comprehensive self-examination, made thorough rectification and operated in accordance with the law". No matter self-examination or self-examination, we can't stop talking to ourselves. To calm down the storm and return to the legal track is the right way; It is an important task to relieve public anger and recover the lost original heart. No matter how far you go, you can't forget why you started. Does HowNet know?