Taxacom: Question about feedback on unintentionally stolen authorships

[Francisco Welter-Schultes]

Hi everyone,

In the ICZN Commission we are currently discussing the Code regulations 
on authorships, and how to improve some provisions in the 5th Code edition.

In this context it would be helpful if we could get some feedback on the 
issue of unintentionally stolen authorships.

Unintentionally stolen authorships is a headline that describes a 
situation by which authors who intended to describe a new species 
communicated this in a congress or elsewhere. Later a book by a colleage 
appeared where the new name was mentioned and attributed to those 
authors, with a brief description presented by the author of the book, 
and the note that this species will be described by those authors in 
detail elsewhere.
The author of that book was usually not aware of the ICZN Code's precise 
rules and the strict application of the Principle of Priority. But the 
new name was actually made available in the book, and is, following the 
Code, attributed to the author of the book, not to the authors who 
initially intended to describe the name and to whom the name had been 
attributed.
In the cases I know the detailed description did always follow 1-3 years 
later.

The term "stolen" is meant in a technical sense. The action was not done 
on purpose, no violation of the Code of Ethics was involved.

Two questions arised:

- How many cases of this kind do we have? In the Commission we know a 
few cases between 1990 and 1999, but this may only be the tip of an iceberg.

- Authorship of zoological names has followed a fixed international 
standard since 1905. In which epoch (after 1905) were the first cases of 
unintentionally stolen authorships observed?

The thought behind is that if these are many cases we could provide an 
exception to Art. 50.1.1, so that the author would be the author to whom 
the name was attributed in the book, to cover these cases.

For those who are not familiar with the authorship regulations in zoology:

The author of a new scientific animal name is normally the author of the 
publication.
Art. 50.1 determines that if a new name was attributed to a co-author of 
the publication, then that co-author is the author of the name (B in A & B).
Art. 50.1.1 determines that if new name was attributed to a foreign 
author (not a co-author of the publication), and if also the diagnostic 
description is attributed to that foreign author (I shorten this, the 
Code expresses it differently), then that foreign author is the author 
of the name (B in A).

The second condition of Art. 50.1.1 is not satisfied in the 
unintentionally stolen authorships. The brief description is presented 
by the author of the book.
If there are only very few cases it makes no sense to deviate from the 
basic rule and prepare an extra regulation.

After 1999 there should not be many cases of this kind any more, since 
the name must be presented as intentionally new and a name-bearing type 
must be fixed with the term "holotype" (or "syntypes"). This should 
prevent that unprofessional authors establish new names undeliberately.

If you communicate such cases it would be good, if possible, to attach a 
copy of the relevant page of the book, and to provide the bibliographic 
data of the subsequently published detailed description.

Thank you in advance for your kind feedback

- Francisco