RE: NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

[<Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>]

What Joe proposes (that funding agencies own the copyright of the 
works they pay authors to write and then take responsibility for 
the dissemination of that work) happens already in the world of 
intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) like the UN, World Bank, 
IMF, OECD et al. Everything published has the institution's 
copyright and the institution takes responsibility for 
dissemination. Sometimes we even co-publish reports under joint 
copyrights. This is not a new system, it's been in place for 
years - certainly pre-internet.

So perhaps it might be interesting to look and see what happens 
with this model. Is everything available for free? Is everything 
published so that it is easily discoverable? Can you rely on 
their websites to find archival content?

>From what I know I can say that, yes, most reports are available 
for free, but this is not universally true. IGO websites are not 
usually well organised (because their funding is seldom a key 
priority) so reports are not easily discoverable. Is the archive 
well managed - no. Indeed, in many cases the institution 
delegates the responsibility to post and manage content to 
authors and they often move or delete older reports without 
thinking of the consequences.

It is also true that most IGOs have contracted out the publishing 
of their research journals to specialist journal publishers 
(often commercial) because they couldn't provide the investment 
and support needed to develop the journals. In some cases, 
reports are also contracted out to book publishers for the same 
reasons. The pressure to outsource is currently growing in IGOs.

Virtually all IGOs run their publishing operations at a loss and 
funding for these losses is getting harder and harder to find as 
member governments squeeze budgets. In some cases the posting of 
reports online for free has badly eroded the revenue streams from 
selling publications, causing financial problems. As with many 
university presses, it is often the publishing operation that 
gets hit when the squeeze is on as this activity is not 
considered 'core'.

Larger IGOs like World Bank, OECD and the main parts of the UN 
have in-house publishing operations that work with the authors to 
improve their original manuscripts and promote the resultant 
reports. The financial squeeze means there is less support for 
authors and fewer resources for promotion efforts. (Promotion 
might not seem important, but what is the point of putting out a 
report if no-one reads it?) It is also noticeable that small IGOs 
are struggling to get their reports 'out there' because they 
don't have the in-house resources and skills to publish their 
work properly. Two things here: firstly, IGOs have employed 
publishing staff to support authors - will funding agencies end 
up doing the same? Secondly, size seems to matter - will smaller 
funding agencies find they have a 'scale' problem?

Toby Green
Head of Publishing, OECD

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: 31 October, 2007 12:57 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

Mandating a nonexclusive right means that the author does not 
fully control the rights.  Okay, fair enough:  if you don't 
believe that an author should have the full rights, why not just 
say that?  Saying one own something except for when one doesn't 
isn't persuasive.

As I said in my original post, I have no problem with saying that 
work funded by a third party should be considered a work for 
hire.  What I find troubling is the pretense that this is about 
authors' rights when it in fact is taking away some authors' 
rights.

And this is why mandates are necessary, because open access does 
not have the full support of the authors themselves.  There are 
exceptions to this and they are significant.

My own view of a better policy (seconding in part Ann Okerson's 
recent comment to this list, but I doubt she would extend the 
remark as I am) is that government-funded research should be 
written up and posted to government-funded open access Web sites 
without an embargo.  In this formulation the author (really "the 
writer") has no rights in the work except for those the granting 
body chooses to assign to him or her.  In some instances, the 
funding agency may choose to claim authorship of this work, as 
the work-for-hire statute provides (as in "copyright (c) by the 
NIH").

This will ultimately be much more expensive than the current 
system, but if costs were the issue, we wouldn't be talking about 
open access to begin with.

Joe Esposito