[GOAL] Some Quaint Elsevier Tergiversation on "Rights Retention"

[Stevan Harnad]

*Preamble:* If you wish to sample some of the most absurd, incoherent,
pseudo-legal gibberish on the subject of "rights" retention,
"systematicity" and free will, please have a look at what follows
under "*Elsevier
Article Posting
Policies*<http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/postingpolicy>"
below. (And bear in mind that an institution only provides a tiny fraction
of any journal's content.)

Any author foolish enough to be intimidated by this kind of garbled
double-talk deserves everything that's coming to him.

*My Advice to Authors*: Ignore this embarrassing, self-contradictory
nonsense completely and exercise your retained "right" to post your final
refereed draft ("AAM") in your institutional repository immediately upon
acceptance, whether or not it is mandatory, secure in the knowledge that
from a logical contradiction anything and everything (and its opposite)
follows! (And be prepared to declare, with hand on heart, that as an adult,
every right you exercise with your striate musculature is exercised
"voluntarily.")

[By the way, as long as Elsevier states that its authors retain the right
to post "voluntarily", Elsevier, too, remains on the Side of the
Angels<http://www.google.ca/search?q=Elsevier+angels+blogurl%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&biw=1014&bih=768&sa=X&ei=LI2vUPOLHNDI0AGanYCoAg&ved=0CCIQpwUoBw&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A2000%2Ccd_max%3A2013&tbm=blg>
insofar
as immediate, unembargoed Green OA self-archiving is concerned. It's just
that the Angels are a bit glossalalic...]

------------------------------

*Elsevier Article Posting
Policies*<http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/postingpolicy>

*Accepted author manuscripts (AAMs)*

*Definition: *An accepted author manuscript (AAM) is the author's version
of the manuscript of an article that has been accepted for publication and
which may include any author-incorporated changes suggested through the
processes of submission processing, peer review, and editor-author
communications. AAMs do not include other publisher value-added
contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, technical enhancements and
(if relevant) pagination.

*Policy:* Authors retain the right to use the accepted author manuscript
for personal use, internal institutional use and for *permitted scholarly
posting* provided that these are not for purposes of commercial use or
systematic distribution...

*Permitted scholarly posting: **Voluntary* [emphasis added] posting by an
author on open websites operated by the author or the author's institution
for scholarly purposes, as determined by the author, or (in connection with
preprints) on preprint servers...

...Elsevier believes that individual authors should be able to distribute
their AAMs for their personal *voluntary* [emphasis added] needs and
interests, e.g. posting to their websites or their institution's
repository, e-mailing to colleagues. However, our policies differ regarding
the *systematic aggregation or distribution of AAMs to ensure the
sustainability of the journals to which AAMs are submitted* [emphasis
added]. Therefore, deposit in, or posting to, subject-oriented or
centralized repositories (such as PubMed Central), or institutional
repositories with *systematic posting mandates* [emphasis added] is
permitted only under specific agreements between Elsevier and the
repository, agency or institution, and only consistent with the publisher's
policies concerning such repositories. *Voluntary* [emphasis added] posting
of AAMs in the arXiv subject repository is permitted.

Systematic distribution means: policies or other mechanisms designed to
aggregate and openly disseminate, or to substitute for journal-provided
services, including:

--- The systematic distribution to others via e-mail lists or list servers
(to parties other than known colleagues), whether for a fee or for free...

--- Institutional, funding body or government manuscript posting policies or
* mandates* that aim to aggregate and openly distribute the work by its
researchers or funded researchers...
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