[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders

[Jan Velterop]

Then don't reply to me all the time, Stevan. Besides, I would dearly like to hear some other voices in response.

Jan

On 20 Jun 2012, at 21:12, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> Gentle reader, please skip this if you have heard the same things
> said by me and Jan over and over. If Jan posts again, I won't
> reply. Please do not construe my silence as assent!
> 
> On 2012-06-20, at 2:54 PM, Jan Velterop wrote:
> 
>> On 20 Jun 2012, at 16:21, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2012-06-20, at 10:30 AM, Jan Velterop wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The mistake authors make is to 'pay' publishers for their services
>>>> by transferring copyright.
>>> 
>>> Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional subscriptions. 
>> 
>> What does [Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional
>> subscriptions] mean here?
> 
> It means the full costs of publication are being paid. No one
> is doing anything without getting paid for it.
> 
>> What is being paid is enough to pay for publication, I agree.
>> But it's not paid for publication, it's paid for access. That's
>> precisely the problem. 
> 
> What is the problem? If the costs are covered (and covered
> handsomely) the costs are covered. What is your point?
> 
>> Plain vanilla [free online] access is solving yesterday's problem.
> 
> Yesterday's problem is still today's problem, and it is still
> unsolved -- until institutions and funders mandate Green OA.
> 
>> Sometimes one has to leapfrog and anticipate the future.
>> CC-BY allows that. OA as simply 'ocular access' doesn't.
> 
> We have even less free OA + CC-BY than plain vanilla
> free online OA today.
> 
> How does CC-BY "allow" its solution whereas free online
> access doesn't? 
> 
> This all sounds very theoretical. But what we need is
> real OA, in the world, and there is not only less free 
> OA + CC-BY than free OA today, but free OA + CC-BY
> is harder to get then free OA alone (apart from including
> free OA).
> 
> So, practically speaking, what is your point? And in what
> sense is CC-BY the solution for anything other than a
> self-imposed theoretical puzzle?
> 
>> I'm referring to text mining and re-use rights, or rather
>> the lack of it in plain vanilla, before you ask.
> 
> Yes, besides lacking free OA today, we also lack free OA
> + CC-BY
> 
> And your point is...?
> 
>> [Green OA works] As long as 'green' means manuscripts,
>> yes. If 'green' means the published paper for which the
>> copyright has been transferred, no.
> 
> It means the refereed final draft. That's what access-denied
> users are denied today. That's what plain vanilla free online
> OA gives them -- and it would mean the difference between
> night and day for those access-denied users.
> 
> So much for practical reality: Now back to abstract theory:
> 
>> A mandate should make abundantly clear that under no
>> circumstances copyright should be transferred to a publisher.
> 
> A mandate should make abundantly clear that the refereed
> final draft must be deposited immediately (and made OA no
> later than the allowable embargo period).
> 
> If in addition the mandate can be strengthened beyond vanilla
> to include copyright retention, that's even better (no embargo!).
> 
> But you forgot to mention how, when we have not yet got the
> vanilla mandates, we're going to get the butterscotch-strawberry
> ones?
> 
> Should the "even-better" wait for or hold up the "better"?
> Especially when the better is already within reach and the
> even-better is not?
> 
>> Copyright transfer is a contract. 'Green' mandates rule out
>> copyright transfer. Legally and practically.
> 
> All I recall was that they required authors to deposit their
> refereed drafts within an embargo period...
> 
>> Researchers shouldn't be enticed into legal conflict zones
>> with false assertions that they can transfer legal rights and
>> then ignore the fact that they have transferred them. They
>> should not transfer them and be advised accordingly.
>> Admitting the problem is the first step to a solution. 
> 
> I suggest you talk to physicists, who have been doing this
> for over 20 years now. You would have had a splendid reason
> for them not have done it at all, since 1991.
> 
> And I repeat, everything you are saying applies to the length
> of the allowable OA embargo. I have far, far less interest in
> that than in mandating the immediate deposit, the keystrokes.
> 
> I haven't the slightest doubt that once ID/OA is universally
> mandated, the struggle's over, and the research community
> will turn the lights on for the dark deposits forthwith. All this
> abstract talk about what the publishers are being paid for
> and what rights are transferred is just conceptual
> shadow-boxing.
> 
>> Subscriptions pay for access. The fee should be paid
>> for the service rendered, which is the organisation of
>> peer review and formal publication. Conflating the two
>> is the main cause of misunderstanding and conflict.
> 
> The subscription fees are paying for the costs of publication
> even if they are designated as contributions to Santa Claus.
> 
> And peer review won't get unbundled from the rest of the
> products and services it's wrapped in with until demand for the
> rest of the products and services vanishes, because 
> users are satisfied with just the vanilla final draft (Green OA).
> 
> Then institutions can cancel subscriptions and part of their
> windfall savings can be used to pay for the peer review,
> as Gold OA.
> 
> But you need to mandate Green OA to get from here to there!
> 
>> Mandates would be an awful lot clearer if the argument that
>> "the publication fee is paid in full by subscriptions" were to
>> be dropped from the equation. 'Green' mandates are about
>> making research results open, and costs nothing; publishing,
>> including OA publishing, is about giving those research results
>> 'value' and 'context' in the scholarly ego-system, and carries a
>> cost, because it involves asking people (publishers) to arrange
>> something, professionally, and those people need to be paid.
> 
> Jan: Publication costs are being paid, in full, by subscriptions today. 
> That's incontestable, even if notionally they're meant to go to Santa
> Claus.
> 
> Green mandates supplement that subscription access to the version
> of record with free online access to the author's refereed draft.
> 
> That's all there is to it. The rest is a theoretical loop you are inventing
> for yourself.
> 
>> CC-BY is not copyright reform. It's using existing copyright effectively,
>> and not as a proxy for payment to publishers, that subsequently
>> makes it possible - and necessary - to sell subscriptions.
> 
> Whatever it is, there are even fewer authors getting or giving CC-BY
> than are giving Green OA, unmandated. Green OA mandates make
> the difference even greater.
> 
> Lots of luck trying to get institutions and funders to mandate free access 
> + CC-BY rather than just free access. Just as long as at least free access
> (Green Gratis OA (ID/OA)) gets mandated universally.
> 
> Why are we going on and on like this? Richard's tired of it, and so
> are GOAL readers. And it's never anything new.
> 
>> I'm not discussing the length of embargo periods, either. In fact, I don't
>> like them at all. 'Gold' OA doesn't need them.
> 
> Yes, but where's the Gold OA? Do you propose to mandate it?
> 
>> Indeed, nobody should even have been thinking about the concept
>> of a car until all the horses had [retired]. 
> 
> No harm thinking all you like. Just don't let your thinking get in the
> way of the Green OA mandates that will get us from here to there instead
> of leaving is paralyzed in theoretical thought for yet another lost decade.
> 
> Stevan
> 
> 
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