I posted the comment below since on April 1 I wrote to the editor of the
journal and did not receive a reply. However I did subsequently receive a
reply and this morning obtained a free copy of the article from the
publisher (more accurately the current holder of the copyright, since the
journal was originally published by Gordon & Breach which is now part of
Taylor & Francis). So the picture is not quite as bad as I made it out, I am
happy to say.
The PDF has a cover page with the following text which may be of interest in
light of our recent discussions: "This article may be used for research,
teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic
supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden." To me
that suggests that I can email it out in response to requests, but putting
it on my website might raise questions - I will probably do so anyway, but
don't be surprised if you see a picture of me in handcuffs doing the prep
walk on the cover of Ecology Letters.
I also think that I was overly harsh in my responses to Gavin Simpson about
copyright law and privacy - we have corresponsed off-list and our views are
closer than it seemed from our list postings. Neither of us supports the
idea of "substantial or systematic" piracy (to borrow a phrase from the
above copyright notice), but I think that I may be a bit more ready to bring
civil disobedience to the publishing field than some other ecologists might
be.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Silvert" <cien...@silvert.org>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism Approval
required
The arrogance of the journals can be hard to believe. I once wrote a paper
which I circulated as a preprint, which one of my friends showed to a
leading figure in the field who edited a prestigious journal - he called
me up and asked if I would let him publish it in his journal. I was of
course delighted! But now that my reprints are exhausted and I want to
send out PDFs, they won't even give me one for my own use - they want to
charge me 30 euros! And this for a paper published over 30 years ago.
