RE: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

["Sally Morris" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

No one seems to have mentioned that you also can't blame 
publishers for wanting to protect what they have added to an 
author's 'raw' work.  They invest substantially in creating the 
journal, association with which benefits the article;  they 
(often) pay the journal editor;  they pay for the peer review 
infrastructure;  they pay for copy-editing;  and that's before it 
even gets published.

Sally

Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 11 January 2011 01:44
To: American Scientist Open Access Forum
Subject: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

** Cross-posted **

The following query came up on the UKCORR mailing list:

> I was surprised to read the paragraph below under author's rights
>(http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/copyright##rights
>)  "the right to post a revised personal version of the text of the
>> final journal article (to reflect changes made in the peer review
>> process) on your personal or institutional web site or server for
>> scholarly purposes, incorporating the complete citation and with a
>> link to the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the article (but not
>> in subject-oriented or centralized repositories or institutional
>> repositories with mandates for systematic postings unless there is a
>> specific agreement with the publisher- see
>> http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbody agreements for further
>> information]);"

You can't blame Elsevier's Perplexed Permissions Personnel for 
trying: After all, if researchers -- clueless and cowed about 
copyright -- have already lost nearly two decades of research 
access and impact for no reason at all, making it clear that only 
if/(when they are required (mandated) by their institutions and 
funders will they dare to do what is manifestly in their own best 
interests and already fully within their reach, then it's only 
natural that those who perceive their own interests to be in 
conflict with those of research and researchers will attempt to 
see whether they cannot capitalize on researchers' guileless 
gullibility, yet again.

In three words, the above "restrictions" on the green light to 
make author's final drafts OA are (1) arbitrary, (2) incoherent, 
and (3) unenforceable. They are the rough equivalent of saying: 
You have "the right to post a revised personal version of the 
text of the final journal article (to reflect changes made in the 
peer review process) on your personal or institutional web site 
or server for scholarly purposes -- but not if you are required 
to do so by your institution or funder."

They might as well have added "or if you have a blue-eyed uncle 
who prefers tea to toast on alternate Tuesdays."

My own inclination is to say that if researchers prove to be 
stupid enough to fall for that, then they deserve everything that 
is coming to them (or rather, withheld from them).

But even I, seasoned cynic that the last 20 years have made me, 
don't believe that researchers are quite that stupid -- though I 
wouldn't put it past SHERPA/Romeo to go ahead and solemnly 
enshrine this latest bit of double-talk in one of its slavish 
lists of "General Conditions" on a publisher's otherwise "green" 
self-archiving policy, thereby helpfully furnishing an effective 
pseudo-official megaphone for every such piece of optimistic 
gibberish, no matter how absurd.

My advice to authors (if, unlike what the sensible computer 
scientists and physicists have been doing all along -- namely, 
self-archiving without first seeking anyone's blessing for two 
decades -- they only durst self-archive if their publishers have 
first given them their green light to do so) is that they take 
their publishers at their word when they do give them their green 
light to do so, and ignore any SHERPA/Romeo tommy-rot they may 
try to append to that green light to make it seem as if there is 
any rational line that can be drawn between "yes, you may make 
your refereed final draft OA" and "no, you may not make your 
refereed final draft OA."

For those who are interested in knowing what is actually 
happening, worldwide, insofar as OA self-archiving is concerned, 
I recommend reading Peter Suber's stirring 2010 Summary of real 
progress rather than the sort of pseudo-legalistic 
smoke-screening periodically emitted by Permissions Department 
Pundits (whether or not not they are canonized by SHERPA-Romeo): 
http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/newsletter/01-02-11.htm#2010

Dixit,

Your Weary and Wizened Archivangelist