I am pleased to see strong discussion on OKF lists. Several issues have been raised (some by me). It may be useful to draw some distinctions.
* The context of the discussion is largely scholarly publication. If we step outside this then I think there will be littel consensus * There is a distinction between monographs and articles in serials. Open Access for monographs is much less advanced than for serials. * Most scholarly publication occurs in science and most of that is funded directly or indirectly from the public purse (including charities). We can exclude companies publishing their work. * The public purse expects "Open" publication. It spends (world wide) about 100,000,000,000 -> 1,000,000,000,000 USD on the research (I have tried to get better figures). The public purse spends about 10,000,000,000 USD on publication (author and reader-sides). The particular issue is that funders require Open Access and many publishers resist this. Large amounts are spent on funded Open Access (up to 5000 USD per article). There is no consensus on what funders or authors get for this sum (a wide variety of licences are used - see Ross' fantastic spreadsheet). My personal view is that 5000 USD for a NC licence (as opposed to a free Green copy of the author's manuscript) represents almost no added values. If arts and humanities feel that CC-NC meets their needs - where there is no implicit or explicitly funder - then I probably shan't challenge this. But if CC-NC is used for science we shall have monumentally reduced the value of the work that has been funded. I suggest that we restrict a major part of our discussion to the area I have outlined above - funded research isn scientific serials. If others wish to discuss monographs, etc. then let's label them as separate discussions. The urgent issue for science is to urge that all funded publication of scientific articles should be CC-BY. The arguments about creative artists protecting their work may be valid elsewhere but should not spill over into science. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069
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