Re: Open Access vs Copyleft?

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 Marco Marandola, international copyright expert,
marandol@tiscali.it wrote:

> I am having a discussion with some expert friends on this subject: Is the
> Open Access part of the copyleft movement?

No it is not. This question has been much discussed in the American
Scientist Open Access Forum. Here are some of the topic threads:

    "Cloture on public-domain solution" (2001)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1713.html

    "Copyleft" article in New Scientist (2002)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1818.html

    Open Access vs Open Source/Software (2003)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2967.html

    "Public Access to Science Act (Sabo Bill, H.R. 2613)" (2003)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2977.html 

    "Open Access Does Not require Republishing and Reprinting Rights" (2004)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3444.html

    "Apercus of WOS Meeting: Making Ends Meet in the Creative Commons"  (2004)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3797.html
To summarise quickly: 

The Open Access movement is focused primarily on one specific form of
content: articles published in peer-reviewed research journals and
conference proceedings. Its target is not books, textbooks, magazine
articles, newspaper articles, sheet music, audio recordings, video
recordings, software, etc.

The reason for this separation is very specific too: Without exception,
all articles published in peer-reviewed research journals and conference
proceedings are *Author Give-Aways*, written solely for the sake of
maximising their uptake, usage and impact, not for the sake of royalty
revenues or fees from their sale.

   http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.1

This is not true of the rest of the digital content listed above: it is
not all (or even mostly) author give-aways: Much of it is written for the
sake of royalties or fees from their sale. Let us call the two kinds of
content pure Give-Away (GA) and mixed (GA and non-GA) content.

The solution for the GA content already being published in peer-reviewed
journals/conferences is OA: It need merely be made freely accessible to
all users online. The solution for non-GA content is more complex, for
first it has to be ascertained what wants to be given away, and then the
conditions have to be formalised in the form of a contract or license
between the author and the publisher.

Either Copyleft or the Creative Commons License are excellent solutions
for the mixed content domains.

Copyleft and/or the CC License are of course welcome where desired and
possible in the GA/OA domain too -- but they are not *necessary* in the
GA/OA domain, and any implication that they are necessary is not only
wrong but retards the progress of OA:

The reason is simple. Ninety-two percent of journals surveyed have already
given their official green light to author OA self-archiving: that means
the author puts a draft of the full-text online, free for all. The author
may continue to either transfer copyright to the publisher, or license it
to the publisher. None of that need change. All that is needed for OA is a
full-text version permanently accessible to all would-be users web-wide
for free.

    http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php

There is also a practical and legal solution for self-archiving the
articles in the 8% of journals that are not yet green:

    http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#self-archiving-legal

Hence 100% OA is already feasible without requiring authors to try to
renegotiate their copyright agreements for either copyleft of the CC
license with their publishers.

Even worse than wrongly implying that making their articles OA first
requires successfully renegotiating copyright transfer agreements with
publishers -- an unnecessary and uncertain task that many GA authors would
not want to undertake -- is wrongly implying that making their articles OA
requires putting them into the *public domain* (i.e., renouncing copyright
altogether).

Give-away authors need simple, direct ways do do what they wish to do:
Give away free online access to their (copyrighted) articles. They can do
this either by publishing them in OA journals or by publishing them in
non-OA journals and self-archiving them. They need not negotiate a
copyleft or CC license with their publishers (unless both wish to do so),
and they need not put their articles in the public domain (something very
few authors and no publishers are likely to wish to do).

> In favor:  the definition of copyleft as making a work free, the author
> allowed some uses without any remuneration or authorization.

Unnecessary. The article need merely self-archive them on the web, free
for all. The rest comes with the (online, webwide-accessible) territory.

> Against: The Open Access is only at academic level.

It is unclear what this means! Webwide full-text access means webwide
full-text access, free for all, at all levels.

Stevan Harnad