<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Stevan Harnad <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk" target="_blank">harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div style="word-wrap:break-word">The issue is the self-contradiction between (1) a formal statement that a right rests with the author (i.e., does not require seeking the agreement of the publisher) yet at the same time (2) stipulating that the right to *exercise* that right requires seeking agreement from the publisher!<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div>
<br></div></font></span><br clear="all"></div></div></div></blockquote><div>This is exactly the issue. Is self-archiving a right? I think it *should* be but I have always assumed that many people see it as a hard-won concession from the publisher.<br>
<br>This is why I keep urging formal definitions and formal procedures. At present that seems that publisher "agreements" are made with individual organizations or even individuals. Publisher statements (such as statements of permission to self-archive) can be rescinded later (as appears here, at least in practice) or modified without notification.<br>
<br>Meanwhile the actual practices are in secret contracts between N publishers and M universities - an N*M confusion matrix.<br><br>I would feel more positive about Green OA if it was a formalized process as opposed to resting on fuzzy concepts. For example there seem to many different definitions of what self-archiving is, and this varies between publishers.<br>
<br></div></div><br>-- <br>Peter Murray-Rust<br>Reader in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>CB2 1EW, UK<br>+44-1223-763069<br>