This statement is indeed worthy of further consideration. One element that I would like to highlight is the statement that open access article will be published with the CC-BY-NC-ND license only. While the owners of the journals may have a vested interest in retaining commercial rights, authors and academic editors also have good reasons for preferring some restrictions. I argue that by pushing for CC-BY, open access advocates and policy-makers are alienating scholars and even open access advocates. I argue that CC-BY is a problematic license which should not be considered a panacea for open access. One of the problems with CC-BY OA policy is a huge loophole. By publishing an article as open access via CC-BY, the author has met the researcher funders' requirement. However, there is no obligation on the part of the journal or publisher to continue to provide free access to the article or to continue to provide a CC-BY version of the article. Converting a CC-BY item to a more restricted license, even toll access, is as simple as taking down the CC-BY licensed version and replacing it with one that it is more restricted. The restrictions that come with other CC licenses have both unfortunate and beneficial impacts for scholarship. Restrictions (obviously) restrict re-use, which is never optimal. However, there are also situations where the restrictions protect both scholars and scholarship. For example, No Derivatives limits the likelihood of adaptations that include errors.
Here is the relevant section from the History Editors' statement (not exactly the same as my argument above): The licence that we will offer for publication in EITHER green OR gold will be a CCBY NC ND (creative commons non-commercial non-derivative) licence only; that is, it will not allow commercial reuse, or tweaking or reuse of parts of an article (text mining). The government has specified that ‘gold’ access is to be given on a CCBY licence, the most permissive form of creative commons licence that there is. This however means that commercial re-use, plagiarism, and republication of an author’s work will be possible, subject to the author being ‘credited’ (but it is not clear in what way they would be credited). We believe that this is a serious infringement of intellectual property rights and we do not want our authors to have to sign away their rights in order to publish with us. Recommendation: funding agency and university policies should be for free-to-read or public access and not specify a particular CC license. A particular project may come with particular stipulations. The Human Genome Project is a great example of how funders and researchers got together to facilitate sharing that predates Creative Commons. Heather Morrison, PhD http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/ On 2012-12-17, at 7:53 AM, Frederick Friend wrote: > The “Statement on position in relation to open access” issued by the Editors > of twenty-one important history journals is a very significant development > and has not received the discussion it deserves (see > http://www.history.ac.uk/news/2012-12-10/statement-position-relation-open-access > ). In particular the Statement contains the following decision in relation > to “green” open access when the author does not pay an APC: “The period of > embargo we will offer will be 36 MONTHS. We think this is the shortest > possible period that would still protect our viability as subscription-funded > organisations, which have to pay for copyediting and the management of peer > review, and is fully consistent with the need to make research publicly > available.” Given the importance of the journals listed in the Statement this > decision will have a major impact not only upon the academic history > community world-wide but also upon the substantial readership of history > journals outside academia. > > Although the Statement comes from the Editors it has to be assumed that the > decision to raise the embargo period to 36 months is made with the blessing > of the journals’ proprietors. Many of the journals on the list are owned by > publishers with embargo periods shorter than 36 months, even for humanities > journals, so the question needs to be asked: is this Statement the precursor > for a general increase in the length of embargo periods? One of the > predictions made by critics of new open access policies in the UK is that > publishers will exploit the weaknesses in the Finch Report, increase embargo > periods and stunt the growth in open access repository content. > > The rationale given by the Editors of the History journals for the increase > in the embargo period also needs to be challenged. Where is their evidence > that their subscription base will be harmed by short embargo periods? Can > they name any journal in any subject field that has ceased publication > because of the deposit of content in open access repositories? Repository > content on open access is now at a sufficiently high level that even a minor > impact upon subscriptions would have been noticed by now. The only reason for > cancellation for which there is any evidence is when unjustified increases in > subscription rates have occurred. I have heard it said that the longer usage > half-life of humanities journals puts them at greater risk over a longer > period, but a longer half-life does not cause librarians to cancel > subscriptions; if anything it reinforces the long-term value of a journal. > > The Statement also misses an opportunity to embrace the value of both green > and gold open access to those who read the history journals and consequently > the value of open access to the history institutions and to the journal > publishers. It may happen that a large number of history authors are able to > fund an APC but the present signs are not hopeful. A longer green embargo > period will certainly reduce usage of the journal content over time, and > there is no evidence that the reduction in open access usage will be made up > through increased sales of subscriptions or single articles. The emphasis > should surely be upon using open access to increase the readership of the > history journals. Without a high readership the future of not only the > journals but also of the history research institutions could be put at risk > in a climate of reduced public funding. It is in this broad context that I > find the History journal Editors’ Statement so disappointing. > > Fred Friend > Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL > http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
