We have heard it repeatedly claimed<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&tbm=blg&sclient=psy-ab&q=(german+OR+germany)+(Copyright+OR+freedom+OR+legal+OR+freedom)+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&oq=(german+OR+germany)+(Copyright+OR+freedom+OR+legal+OR+freedom)+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&gs_l=serp.12...30593.32815.3.35597.11.11.0.0.0.3.350.1283.5j4j0j1.10.0.les%3B..0.1...1c.1.WkMCZbfWLzU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=3021f0429232a004&bpcl=38625945&biw=1263&bih=683>, without evidence or argument, that in Germany it would be illegal<https://plus.google.com/u/0/109377556796183035206/posts/drJqNn5oZNy> to mandate that authors self-archive their final drafts of peer-reviewed articles because it would be a "violation of academic freedom."
I have never believed this claim, and do not even think it is coherent. A Green OA self-archiving mandate leaves authors free to publish whatever they wish and to publish it in whatever journal they wish. It merely requires them to deposit the final, accepted draft in an institutional repository. (Most Green OA mandates don't even require the deposit to be made OA immediately: they allow it to be left in Closed Access during a publisher embargo period: About 60% of journals do not have OA embargoes; 40% have embargoes of from 6-12 months to several years or more.) Hence the requirement to deposit is merely an administrative mandate -- like requiring that publications be submitted electronically rather than on paper, for performance evaluation. (Was that a violation of academic freedom in Germany too?) The "illegal in Germany" claim has been made over and over, in and about Germany. It invariably turns out to be based on the incorrect assumption that it entails putting a constraint on authors' academic freedom. Instead of just repeating the claim, like hearsay, endlessly, I urge advocates and opponents of OA alike to first get it clear in their minds exactly what a Green OA self-archiving mandate mandates, and then to state explicitly how or why it violates authors' academic freedom. But be careful not to conflate Green OA self-archiving mandates with Gold OA publishing mandates: The latter would require authors to publish in Gold OA journals rather than their journals of choice; or they would forbid authors to publish in journals that embargo Green OA. Such mandates would indeed be constraining authors' academic freedom. But Gold OA publishing is not what most OA mandates require. They just require Green OA self-archiving. (See ROARMAP <http://roarmap.eprints.org/> -- and you will see that there are already some Green OA mandates in Germany.) Stevan Harnad Further discussion: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/959-.html
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