Re: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

["FrederickFriend" <ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk>]

Sally chooses her words very carefully. Publishers do indeed pay 
for the peer review infrastructure, but they do not pay for peer 
review, the cost of which is borne by the academic community and 
far outweighs the cost of the infrastructure. When you look at 
the total costs borne by each stakeholder in the world of 
academic journals, the contribution of publishers is still 
important but it is put into perspective, and even more into 
perspective when you look at the economic value of the benefits 
from each stakeholder contribution.

Fred Friend

-----Original Message-----
From: Sally Morris
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:26 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

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