OA and copyright (RE: Springer blasts Open Choice criticism)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> Open Choice has come in for criticism from OA vendors and bloggers for
> being overpriced and not offering 'pure' open access because Springer
> will retain copyright.

To the degree that people's objections are based on Springer's retention
of copyright, it reflects an unfortunately narrow idea of OA.  I don't see
any reason to object to an OA model that allows the whole world to read
the content while leaving the traditionally exclusive rights of copyright
holders intact.  If the point of OA is to make content freely available,
rather than to undermine the very concept of intellectual property, then
there's no reason at all why copyright can't be retained by either authors
or the publishers to whom authors assign it.  It's really too bad that the
three prevailing OA protocols (Berlin, Bethesda, Barcelona) all insist on
requiring copyright holders to abdicate those exclusive rights.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu