<br>On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pm286@cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">pm286@cam.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>* is there any *contractual* relationship between a Green-publisher and any legal body? Or is Green simply a permission granted unilaterally by publishers when they feel like it, and withdrawable when they don't.<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Green publishers state in their copyright agreements that the author retains the right to make the refereed draft OA immediately upon publication (no embargo) by self-archiving it in an OA repository (usually the author's own institutional repository).</div>
<div><br></div><div>Copyright agreements can always be rewritten with the next generation of authors (they are binding on both parties of the prior generation once signed) -- but with every passing month in the growth of the momentum toward OA it becomes harder, not easier, for Green publishers to back-slide (and for non-Green publishers to keep sitting on the fence).</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
* if Green starts impacting on publishers' revenues (and I understand this is part of the Green strategy - when we have 100% Green then publishers will have to change) what stops them simply withdrawing the permission? Or rationing it? Or any other anti-Green measure<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>See above.</div><div><br></div><div>But Green has not had an effect on publishers' revenues yet, and it will not, until worldwide Green OA approaches 100%. (Institutions can't cancel must-have journals if their users can only access a percentage of their contents.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>If and when Green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable, publishers will downsize to peer-review management alone, and charge for the service on the Gold OA model, paid for out of institutions' annual subscription cancelation savings.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Publishers know this (and also know it's optimal for research, hence inevitable), so they lobby against it with FUD about Green OA destroying publishing and peer review.</div><div><br></div><div>It's fiddlesticks, of course, and the Finch Committee should have had the sense to see through it. But there's no accounting for human folly...</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
* Do publishers receive any funding from anywhere for allowing Green? Green is extra work for them - why should they increase the amount they do?<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>What extra work is Green for publishers? It's just a few extra keystrokes for authors.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>* Is there any body which regularly "negotiates" with publishers such as ACS, who categorically forbid Green for now and for ever.<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Just let funder and institutional mandates grow (and allowable embargoes shrink). Nature will take care of the rest. (Yes, the American Chemical Society is likely to be the very last one to adapt to the optimal and inevitable -- but they will, because the adaptation of the rest will already have debunked their FUD about where Green OA leads.)</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Various publishers seem to indicate that they will allow Green as long as it's a relatively small percentage. But, as Stevan has noted, if your institution mandates Green, then Elsevier forbids it. So I cannot see why, if Green were to reach - say - 50%, the publishers wouldn't simply ration it and prevent 100%. <br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I also said that Elsevier's "free-will clause" is incoherent ("you retain the right to self-archive, but you may not exercise it if you must") and should be ignored by every author still in command of his senses.</div>
<div><br></div><div>(Your pre-emptive worries, Peter, are simply encouraging Zeno's Paralysis, of whose 38 symptoms you seem to be repeatedly visited by #32 "Poisoned Apple.")</div><div><a href="http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned">http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned</a> </div>
<div><br></div><div><div>Just let funder and institutional mandates grow (and allowable embargoes shrink). Nature will take care of the rest.</div></div><div><br></div><div>Stevan Harnad</div></div></div>