On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 9:48 PM, Marc Couture <[email protected]> wrote:
On Feb 29, 2012, Karen Shashok wrote in EASE-forum:
>
> Fake journals, fake conferences, and now an online outfit that is
charging for access to
> articles published in open access journals!
>
>http://www.newsrx.com/newsletters/health-and-medicine-week/2008-05-12/200512200
820915W.html
Â
This makes an interesting case study in light of the debate on
"libre" OA.
First, there seems to be nothing illegal, at least in matters of
copyright, in selling this article. BMC papers are published under
the most "libre" CC license (CC-BY), which "permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited". In particular, commercial uses are
allowed, the idea being that someone can ask money for an OA article
only if they offer some added value, because anyone can access the
article for free.
But I had always wondered if some unscrupulous third parties could
succeed in making people pay for OA articles simply by hiding the
fact that they are freely available elsewhere.
So the issue here is more a matter of false representation (which is
unethical, and could well be illegal). The "new" article begins in
the same way as articles in science news media: "According to recent
research from Granada, Spain...". But then this is followed (between
quotes) by the exact beginning of Ms Shashokâs paper, and one has to
pay to see if the remaining of the article is also just an exact
copy of the whole original paper. As a matter of principle, I didn't
want to pay the fee, even if it's small, just to verify, but I
suspect the added value to be close to zero.
I would agree that CC-BY is aimed at allowing downstream users to do almost
anything with the material except pretend they wrote it (an as such I use it
whenever possible).
Â
The particularly pernicious part of this is that it seems to be aimed at
patients who are unlikely to understand the nuances of Open Access and the way
that academia works. They are not going to search Google for particular papers
(which is how most people would discover papers in Institutional Repositories
(whether CC-BY or - the majority - not)). They will happen on this site (which
probably has lots of papers of this sort) from popular medical sites.
Note that selling freely available information and services is a widespread
business model. In the UK there are many firms that sell services to claim back
from the latest insurance misselling when there is a completely free government
service.
Â
There is also the question of complying with the terms of the CC
license: one could argue that, in order that the original paper be
"properly" cited, the complete BMC reference should be given,
including a hyperlink to the (gratis) original article. Maybe there
is such a reference in the part of the article which is not
displayed; this would technically satisfy the license requirements,
but the ethical issue would remain the same.
According to Peter Suber
(http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/07-02-11.htm), about
half of the 22% of OA journals using CC licenses have chosen the
CC-BY version. The others often add the NC (non-commercial)
restriction, maybe to avoid this kind of questionable business
practices. But there is a price to pay, which is that legitimate
commercial uses may be impeded by the NC restriction.
Â
I don't think NC would stop them. They'll probably simply get people to pay for
the link.
IMO publishers are seriously abusing "Open Access". The latest Wiley offering
(3000 Eur, CC-NC, hand copyright to Wiley, accept further restrictions on what
papers are posted and what can be done with them) leaves me
speechless(http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2012/03/04/wiley%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cfully-open-a
ccess%E2%80%9D-chemistry-open-my-review-if-this-is-%E2%80%9Cgold-oa%E2%80%9D-i-
don%E2%80%99t-want-it/ ). I imagine this is labelled on this list as Gold
OA-libre (since we can probably find *some* permission that has been granted)
and it would be in the DOAJ. Personally I think that academia has to find some
way of monitoring and stamping publications because no-one else can be trusted.
Â
--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
[ Part 2: "Attached Text" ]
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