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--></style><title>Re: [SCHOLCOMM] Fool's Gold: Publisher Ransom for
Freedom</title></head><body>
<div>Stevan is absolutely right on this point, and it behooves
publishers who operate hybrid journals to make their finances
transparent. Otherwise, there will always remain the suspicion that
the publishers are double-dipping.</div>
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<div>Sandy Thatcher</div>
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<div><br></div>
<div>At 7:40 AM -0400 10/25/13, Stevan Harnad wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><a
href=
"http://exchanges.wiley.com/blog/2013/10/07/open-access-in-the-uk-will-gold-or-green-prevail/#comment-1094488522"><span
></span>Bob Campbell</a> wrote on the Wiley blog:<br>
<blockquote>"<a
href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1061-.html"><i
>Stevan</i></a><i> accuses me of much conflation yet he himself
conflates APCs and subscriptions when commenting on double-dipping.
APCs are not paying for the 'same articles' paid for by
subscriptions. Publishers have always charged separately for different
services/products. For example, a medical journal may charge a
pharmaceutical company for reprints, advertising space and
subscriptions. These are priced separately and charged separately, and
accounted for separately in the publisher's financial management of
the title. The pharmaceutical company does not demand that the cost of
buying advertising space is offset against any library
subscriptions.</i>"<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Bob Campbell defends double-dipping by
citing journal charges for the purchase of reprints, advertising and
subscriptions. That's all fine.<br>
<br>
But what we are discussing here is the cost of<i> publication</i>, not
of extra products or services.<br>
<br>
Worldwide institutional subscriptions pay the cost of publication (in
full, and fulsomely). It is not at all clear what extra product or
service is being paid for when an author pays for hybrid Gold OA (for
the paper he has given the publisher, for free, to sell).<br>
<br>
Of course it's an extra source of revenue to the hybrid Gold publisher
to force the author to pay that extra money (for whatever it is that
they are paying for). And let there be no doubt that the payment is
indeed<i> forced</i> (if the hybrid Gold publisher embargoes Green).
Is the extra "service," then,<i> exemption from the
publisher-imposed Green OA embargo</i>?<br>
<br>
(Note: If the publisher is among the <a
href="http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/statistics.php">60%</a> who
endorse immediate Green OA, then none of my objections matter in the
least, and I couldn't care less if the publisher earns some extra
revenue from those authors who are silly enough to pay for hybrid Gold
OA when they could have had the same, cost-free, by just providing
Green OA.)<br>
<br>
For the publisher who embargoes Green and then pockets the extra
revenue derived from hybrid Gold, over and above subscriptions,
without even reducing subscription charges proportionately, is indeed
charging twice for publication, i.e., double-dipping (and offering
absolutely nothing in return except<i> freedom from the publisher's
own Green OA embargo</i>).<br>
<br>
Subscriptions pay the cost of publication. Print reprints are an extra
product. And adverts are an extra service. But hybrid Gold OA is
merely fool's gold, if paid unforced. -- And if forced by a publish
embargo, there is a word to describe the practice, but I will not use
it, as a publisher has already once threatened to sue me for libel if
I doŠ So let's just call it double-dipping, with no extra product or
service...<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>Stevan Harnad</b></blockquote>
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</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>Sanford G. Thatcher<br>
8201 Edgewater Drive<br>
Frisco, TX 75034-5514<br>
e-mail: sgt3@psu.edu<br>
Phone: (214) 705-1939<br>
Website: http://www.psupress.org/news/SandyThatchersWritings.html<br>
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sanford.thatcher<br>
<br>
"If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John
Ruskin (1865)<br>
<br>
"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few
people who can write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853)<br>
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