---------- Forwarded message ---------- List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:40:06 -0400 From: Peter Suber <pet...@earlham.edu> To: SPARC Open Access Forum <sparc-oafo...@arl.org>
See Stephen Pincock's story on the RCUK open-access policy in today's issue of _TheScientist_. http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050623/01 Stephen quotes me in the story and I'm happy with the result. But I thought readers of SOAF might be interested in my full comment. The question was what I thought of the phrase "in accordance with copyright and licensing arrangements" as it occurs in this draft paragraph from the policy: Papers arising from work funded by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) should be deposited in an open access repository "at the earliest opportunity, wherever possible at or around the time of publication, in accordance with copyright and licensing arrangements." My reply: I find the phrase "in accordance with copyright and licensing arrangements" incoherent and unhelpful. I don't think it will tell authors or publishers (or eventually, courts) who may do what or who may block whom from doing what. Publishers hold copyright on the copy-edited version of the peer-reviewed manuscript. If the purpose of the clause is simply to tell authors that they may not deposit the copy-edited version without publisher consent, and that they may deposit earlier versions without publisher consent, then it could say so much more directly and clearly. Because this distinction is easy to express and common in other funding-agency policies (such as the NIH policy), I suspect that the RCUK policy is trying to get at something else. But it's far from clear what else the clause might mean. Researchers sign funding contracts with the Research Councils long before they sign copyright transfer agreements with publishers. Funders have a right to dictate terms, such as mandated open access, precisely because they are upstream from publishers. If one condition of the funding contract is that the grantee will deposit the peer-reviewed version of any resulting publication in an open-access repository, then publishers have no right to intervene. That is, publishers have no valid objection based on copyright law or a licensing contract. However, publishers do have the right to refuse to publish any article for any reason, and they may well tell authors that publication depends on agreeing not to provide open access to any version for a certain period of time. But publishers have this power without any action or recognition from the RCUK. If the RCUK are expressing their own willingness to accommodate this power of publishers, then they muddy the waters by referring to copyrights and licenses, which have nothing to do with this power. In short, if the clause is supposed to recognize the right of publishers to publish only what they wish, or only on their own terms, then it's superfluous --and harmful for opening other doors through vagueness. ---------- Peter Suber Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College Author, SPARC Open Access Newsletter Editor, Open Access News blog http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/ peter.su...@earlham.edu