Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Frédéric. Assuming your information is correct, this is the kind of behaviour that has resulted in publishers being labelled predatory. Perhaps someone from Springer would like to clarify their business practice here.
This illustrates one of the drawbacks of the APC model (all models have drawbacks). Authors must submit work to journals (hybrid or full OA), and journals must accept articles for peer review, when neither party knows if the article will be accepted, and in many cases it will not be clear who would pay an APC and how. In this circumstance it is difficult to see how standard business practices such as up-front credit card or e-transfer payment for products or services to be delivered later, with acceptance of terms, could work. I believe that some publishers have experience with old-fashioned print-based page charges that is relevant here. The situation Frédéric describes is problematic for authors and could result in the same kind of backlash we saw with the "predatory publisher" phenomenon. My advice to fellow OA advocates is to take this seriously, to acknowledge and address the issue. Let's own the issue, not leave an opening for leadership to someone with an anti-OA perspective. Green OA policy - just require deposit for OA in the IR - would avoid this particular problem. Best, Heather Morrison -------- Original message -------- From: Frédéric Hélein <[email protected]> Date: 2017-11-27 3:09 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Frédéric Hélein <[email protected]>, Cost of Knowledge <[email protected]>, [email protected] Cc: Bureau RNBM <[email protected]>, "Barber, Nick, Springer FR" <[email protected]>, "Peyle, Philippe, Springer FR" <[email protected]>, "Byrne, Catriona, Springer DE" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [GOAL] English Hello, For the third time in less than a year, I was reported the case of a researcher publishing an article in a Springer journal and who is summoned to pay fees for on line Open Access (2640 euros) because he had chosen this option without understanding the consequences and because it is impossible for him to go back! In this case the last message received contains the very nice sentence: "Please note that we will give our claim to the legal department and debt collection agency if we should not receive your payment in time. You should be aware that there are further costs involved, such as interest fees and administrative fees for the legal action. In order to avoid this you should remit the outstanding amount immediately. We want to provide you one more opportunity in order to clear your debt. " The basic problems are always the same: once the Open Choice option, vaunted by the site, was checked, it can not be undone because the article is published online in a freely accessible form before the payment is made and the publisher refuses to cancel the Open Access option. This mechanism is not very far from a forced sale, a practice prohibited by the article L122-3<https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000024039758> of the French consumer code and makes impossible any use of the right of withdrawal, as provided e.g. by the article 121-20-12<https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006292075&dateTexte=&categorieLien=cid> of the French consumer code. The case in question concerns a researcher who did not imagine that a publisher to whom he ceded his rights (without compensation) for the dissemination of his paper would ask him to pay for this article to be posted on Open Access, while the journal or Proceedings containing this article continue to be sold to institutions. Furthermore the three cases reported to me concern only the community of mathematicians working in France. So there are probably other colleagues in other countries and for other disciplines. Sincerely Yours Frédéric Hélein Professor, University Paris Diderot Scientific Chair of the RNBM<http://www.rnbm.org/> (French National Network of Mathematics Libraries)
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