Re: Publication, Access Provision, and Fair Use

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

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Sandy Thatcher, Director, American Association
of University Presses (AAUP), wrote:

> Publishers will of course differ about what they consider 
> "reasonable." At Penn State we do allow posting of 
> peer-reviewed (but pre-copy-edited) articles as a "reasonable" 
> accommodation of author and publisher needs. I think that makes 
> us Green OA compliant in your terminology.

Yes, that's Green, highly commendable, and the right, responsible 
publisher policy!

But if all journal publishers were Green, there would not need to 
be a Fair Use Button, and we would not be having this discussion!

The Fair Use Button is for articles published in the (c. 38%) of 
"unreasonable" journals. It is a reasonable interim solution -- 
not yet OA, but, once used, in ID/OA mandates, to mandate deposit 
universally, it will soon lead to 100% OA.

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

> When I sign a contract with the University of Toronto Press for 
> an article in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing, I give UTP 
> "exclusive world rights"...  I do not assume that I have the 
> right, say, to share my article with the AAUP general 
> listserv... But these surely are professional colleagues just 
> as your fellow researchers are your colleagues, Stevan. Do you 
> feel it's ok to post your postprint article to such a listserv, 
> as opposed to complying with occasional individual requests 
> (which is what I presume your "fair use button" is used for)?

(Sandy, You are conflating what I said about the Closed-Access, 
Free-Use Button with what I said about Green Open-Access 
Self-Archiving!)

No, posting the full-text to a list does not sound like what most 
people call "Fair Use" (any more than depositing it on the Web 
does).

But posting one's *metadata* to the list does -- including a link 
to the deposited full-text in one's own Institutional Repository, 
which, because of the UTP embargo, some might elect to deposit as 
Closed Access. Then, once they reach the Closed Access dead-end, 
individual users can request a single copy form the author for 
personal research purposes by using the Fair Use Button...

(Is the procedure clearer now?)

> Where do you draw the line in what you consider to be your 
> privilege in sharing your research with other colleagues?

Since the late 1980's I have been personally depositing all my 
refereed final drafts (postprints) and usually my preprints too. 
That's what I recommend all authors to do, and that's what I 
recommend all institutions and funders to mandate that they do:

     http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/

But for those who would like to draw the line a little short of 
that, I recommend the Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access (ID/OA) 
mandate, plus the Fair Use Button for the Closed Access Deposits 
during their embargo periods.

     http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
     http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php

> Or do you just share the preprint in an unlimited way and refer 
> requests for the postprint (in any more than an isolated, 
> occasional way) to your publisher?

See above: I deposit all postprints, and most preprints. For 
those who want to observe publisher embargoes, I recommend ID/OA 
plus the Fair Use Button.

> If you feel that it's ok for authors of journal articles to 
> distribute their articles, in preprint or postprint form, to 
> any number of colleagues in any manner they wish, why shouldn't 
> this same logic of "sharing research with colleagues" apply to 
> authors of books?

First, once again, let us de-conflate (1) Open Access deposits 
from (2) Closed Access deposits plus the Fair Use Button. I 
assume you are asking whether the Button is ok for books too. The 
answer is: yes, of course it is, but most book authors are not 
interested in giving away more than a few promotional copies of 
their book online.

As I said earlier, the answer is different for articles and 
books, because articles are written only for impact whereas books 
are mostly written in some hope of income (though this may 
change).

In short, the difference between articles and books -- insofar as 
online Fair Use give-aways is concerned -- is that most book 
authors are not interested in giving them away to all would-be 
users who cannot or will not pay for access, whereas *all* 
article authors are (interested, that is: it takes a mandate to 
get all article-authors to actually *do* it!)

(Again, please distinguish what I personally do and recommend, 
from what I recommend for those who wish to observe publisher 
embargoes.)

> Do you feel it's ok for authors to send a copy of their books, 
> in preprint or postprint form, to any colleagues they wish 
> either upon request or just because they'd like them to know 
> about it? If not, on what principled grounds would you 
> distinguish the application of a "fair use" privilege to these 
> two cases?

Yes, it's ok, but most book authors have no more desire to do so 
than their publishers do, and for much the same reason. *And 
that's the point!* There is no conflict of interest between trade 
book publishers and trade book authors. They both want to sell 
their joint product for sales royalties.

In contrast, there is a *profound* conflict of interest between 
research journal articles authors and their publishers -- *if* 
the publishers are not Green on self-archiving (as Penn State 
Press is).

> As a publisher, I would worry a great deal about an author 
> sending his book to any or all of his colleagues, or posting it 
> on his own web site or in his university's institutional 
> repository.

Don't worry, because most authors have no motivation to do that. 
(But don't get too complacent, because esoteric monograph authors 
may eventually come to the same way of thinking as refereed 
journal article authors.)

> You might reply that some authors have found that doing so 
> increases the print sales of their books. Yes, a few authors, 
> like Larry Lessig and Yochi Benkler, seem to have had this 
> experience. (I say "seem" because one has no way of proving 
> that the book would not have sold even better in print without 
> the online availability of the book.)

Actually, I would not reply that way as I have my doubts that 
those effects will scale and be sustainable: I think the market 
for the print edition of books is going to shrink greatly, and at 
some point print costs will no longer be recoverable out of sales 
revenues, at which point the print-runs will vanish, apart from 
some special prestige hard copies.

If there is still money to be made from online-edition sales, I 
am sure trade authors and publishers will still want to make it. 
For those that cannot cover costs and make a profit from online 
sales, there is again the option of Gold OA Publishing (paid for 
by the author's funder and/or institutions).

> But the circumstances of a few special authors like these can 
> hardly be extrapolated into a generalization for all books.

I agree, for books.

> My worry stems from the fact that many academic libraries do 
> not now buy revised dissertations because they have access to 
> the unrevised versions through the ProQuest database or the 
> Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. So if 
> even preprint versions of monographs were to be placed online, 
> there is good reason to believe that library sales of such 
> books would dry up.

Yes indeed. So it will again be the impact/income motivational 
split that will decide which way which books will go.

> I don't see how you can argue, from the point of view of its 
> benefit to research, though, why there should be any principled 
> difference between authors of journal articles and authors of 
> books acting differently. In humanities, at least, books are at 
> least as important as articles in advancing scholarship in most 
> fields.

The difference is not legal, it is practical, motivational. At 
the present time, most book authors are not motivated only or 
mostly by the desire to maximise impact, and hence they are not 
giveaway authors, whereas all journal article authors are.

     Harnad, Stevan (2001/2003) For Whom the Gate Tolls?
     http://cogprints.org/1639/01/resolution.htm

Stevan Harnad

PS. Sandy, it has been evident from the outset that your main 
interest is in books, not journal articles. Since book authors 
and publishers have mostly congruent motivations, you do not face 
the prospect of Green OA self-archiving of books (let alone Green 
Book self-archiving mandates). But please don't conflate the 
mostly congruent case of books with the universally conflictual 
case of articles.