[GOAL] English

[Frédéric Hélein]

Hello,

For the third time in less than a year, I was reported the case of a 
researcher publishing an article in
a Springer journal and who is summoned to pay fees for on line Open 
Access (2640 euros) because he had chosen this option
without understanding the consequences and because it is impossible for 
him to go back!

In this case the last message received contains the very nice sentence:
"Please note that we will give our claim to the *legal department and 
debt collection agency* if we should not receive your payment in time. 
You should be aware that there are further costs involved, such as 
interest fees and administrative fees for the legal action. In order to 
avoid this you should remit the outstanding amount immediately.
We want to provide you one more opportunity in order to clear your debt.  "

The basic problems are always the same: once the Open Choice option, 
vaunted by the site, was checked, it
can not be undone because the article is published online in a freely 
accessible form before
the payment is made and the publisher refuses to cancel the Open Access 
option.

This mechanism is not very far from a forced sale, a practice prohibited 
by the article L122-3 
<https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000024039758> 
of the French consumer code
and makes impossible any use of the right of withdrawal, as provided 
e.g. by the article 121-20-12 
<https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006292075&dateTexte=&categorieLien=cid>of 
the French consumer code.

The case in question concerns a researcher who did not imagine that a 
publisher to whom he ceded his rights (without compensation)
for the dissemination of his paper would ask him to pay for this article 
to be posted on Open Access, while the journal or
Proceedings containing this article continue to be sold to institutions.

Furthermore the threecases reported to me concern only the community of 
mathematicians working in France.
So there are probably other colleagues in other countries and for other 
disciplines.

Sincerely Yours

Frédéric Hélein
Professor, University Paris Diderot
Scientific Chair of the RNBM <http://www.rnbm.org/> (French National 
Network of Mathematics Libraries)
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