Subject: Re: Draft Policy for Self-Archiving University Research Output From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 01:16:16 +0000 (GMT) |
On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, Picciotto, Sol wrote: > A response to Stevan Harnad's reply. > > Unless I have seriously misunderstood Open Archiving, it entails making > a separate copy of a work available for access without charge, and not > merely providing a google-type link to the article on the commercial > publisher's website (which would be subject to access tolls). Correct. (But what you mean is "Open Access Archiving," not "Open Archiving," which refers only to a metadata harvesting and interoperability standard). > It is therefore a form of publication, both legally and in practical > terms. That is why commercial publishers are reluctant to allow authors > to retain the right to self-archive, especially in an eprint archive > which would be fully searchable, and hence would directly compete with > their journal. That is why Nature says it would be a breach of their > licence (i.e. the rights they require authors to transfer to them) > to publish/archive a paper in an institutional eprints archive. The formal legal definition of "publication" is hardly relevant here, because according to that definition, any nonsense I scrawl on paper and make public is a publication. That sort of thing has no CV value, so it is definitely not "publishing" in the (relevant) publish-or-perish sense of the word, as it is used by academics. Nor is it of any relevance to the publisher's commercial sense of publication either. Publicizing my doodles, in other words, is a sense of "publication" that may be of (theoretical) interest only to copyright attorneys! This theme was last discussed in this Forum on this thread: Garfield: "Acknowledged Self-Archiving is Not Prior Publication" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2239.html As to why Nature is saying what it's saying: By the above (irrelevant) definition of "publication," self-archiving on one's own website is already "publication," and that is precisely what Nature is saying would *not* be a breach of their license. So that can't be the point either! (In my recent open letter to the Editor of Nature inquiring about the new Nature Licensing policy -- http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2601.html -- I have described, informally, what it is that I believe Nature is concerned about, in trying to specify as explicitly as possible what does and does not count as self-archiving under its new license: And placing a paper (for which the exclusive right to publish has been licensed by the author to Nature) into a commercial website that is gathering Nature's contents together so as to sell or otherwise derive profit from them would not count as self-archiving by the author. Nature wants to reserve its right to go after such a re-publisher [sic] of Nature's contents in court by making it clear that that would not count as the kind of author self-archiving right that the license returns to Nature authors. This does not apply, however, to the author's own institutional eprint archive, which is not gathering Nature's contents so as to re-sell them, but gathering only its own institutional research output, so as to make it openly accessible and thereby maximize its research impact.) > That is why open [access] archiving inevitably comes into conflict with > existing commercial publishing models, and there is a debate here and > elsewhere about alternative business models. I think a good case can be > made that open archiving would not seriously damage commercial publishing, > but I can see why commercial publishers are reluctant to take the risk. No one knows for sure what the long-term effects of open-access through author/institution self-archiving will be on the market for the toll-access version, but what is certain is that the online era and the new possibilities it has opened for maximizing research impact have given rise to an unprecedented conflict of interest between what is best for minimizing potential risk to publishers' future revenues and what is best for maximizing potential research impact. It is also very clear in what direction this conflict of interest must be resolved (namely, in favor of maximizing potential research impact rather than minimizing potential risk to publishers' future revenues). The reason it must be resolved in that direction is not only that research impact (and not royalty revenue) is the sole reason researchers (anomalous among all other authors) publish (refereed research) at all, but, equally important, it is also simply because open access is indeed within their reach. It is no longer possible to close that door. For where journal publishers explicitly refuse to allow self-archiving, thereby broadcacting that they do not share their authors' goal of maximizing their research impact, the preprint-plus-corrigenda strategy -- http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#publisher-forbids -- is still available to all authors for attaining almost exactly the same end -- while implicitly naming-and-shaming, each time that strategy needs to be used, those publishers who thereby advertise that for them maximizing their potential revenue streams is more important than maximizing the potential impact of the research they publish. It is in order to confirm that they stand with the angels on this that Nature has adopted its new self-archiving policy. > It is no doubt easier to make a case for open archiving of works for which > the author receives no payment, which Stevan characterises as Giveaway, > but the publishers merely respond that they bear all the remaining costs, > which are substantial. As long as toll-access revenues are covering those costs, that is no reason for trying to prevent self-archiving. If and when toll-revenues fall, because of competition from the open-access versions, to levels where they can no longer cover all essential costs [and please note that it is not at all clear when or whether this will ever happen] there are ways that costs can be cut and cost-recovery models changed: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#4.2 The issue now is whether or not it is good public relations for publishers to protect themselves against such a possibility by trying to prevent self-archiving (i.e., protect themselves at the expense of their authors' impact). It seems it is bad public relations in any case, because forcing authors to resort to the preprints-plus-corrigenda strategy leads to the same outcome (open access) and only leaves those publishers with egg on their face. Lawrence, S. (2001a) Online or Invisible? Nature 411 (6837): 521. http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ Lawrence, S. (2001b) Free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact. Nature Web Debates. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html > Stevan is wrong to characterise some authors as > giveaway and others as non-giveaway. Many academic authors in many fields > list among their research publications items for which they have received > some form of payment, as well as others where this is not so (both in > journals and not infrequently books). I assume we support moves such as > the decision by UC Press to make many of its books available online? But what is the problem here? What I am saying is not only true but tautological: The Budapest Open Access Initiative -- http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml -- is targeting only those writings that really are author give-aways. This is true, without exception, of the refereed journal literature. And it is almost without exception UNtrue of (say) the royalty-bearing book literature (though the occasional author or publisher sometimes chooses to make a give-away, or a partial give-away, of some books, for various reasons, including that they have no market). No one is trying to get authors to self-archive and place into open-access writings from which they wish to make royalty or fee revenue. Harnad, S., Varian, H. & Parks, R. (2000) Academic publishing in the online era: What Will Be For-Fee And What Will Be For-Free? Culture Machine 2 http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/frm_f1.htm One size does not fit all. Self-archiving and open access are not the solution for the non-give-away literature. (I do predict, though, that once the quantitative evidence of the causal link between access and impact begins to be reckoned for scholarly monographs too, many of them will prefer to forego royalty revenues in favor of maximizing impact, just as refereed-journal authors do. Impact, after all, translates into revenue, in the publish-or-perish academic world.) > An important reason open archiving has been slow to take off is that > academic authors are generally reluctant to oppose publishers who ask for > exclusive publication rights. That is true, and that is why we have been actively informing authors about the preprint-plus-corrigenda option when all else fails. As more journals emulate Nature's progressive policy, this option will become less and less necessary. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/index.html > It would be easier to do this collectively > and with institutional support or leadership. That is the importance > of the claim by universities to retain the right to authorise free > publication in archives. I'm glad that Stevan accepts that this can be > done in parallel, but sorry he is so reluctant to concede that it is an > important complementary step. I not only concede but loudly proclaim that if/when it succeeds, it will be an important complementary step (as welcome as news that the rest of the journals have followed Nature's lead -- though that would also make it somewhat supererogatory!). But any implication that it is necessary in advance, or indeed necessary at all, would simply be another reinforcement of researchers' (groundless) worries about whether or not they can safely self-archive NOW. My own reluctance is hence entirely based on researchers' current reluctance to self-archive because they incorrectly believe that it would be illegal. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#10.Copyright Stevan Harnad
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