These are excellent points, Wilhelmina. I'd like to add that these other negotiations may make publisher transitions TO CC-BY from non-CC or other CC licenses problematic as well. For example, if a journal has published an article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license with the author understanding that a) they retain copyright and b) this will be the license, and the journal subsequently transitions all of its articles to CC-BY, then the journal has violated its contract (implicit or explicit) with the author. Note that many journal articles have multiple authors, so this is an oversimplification.
This is not a hypothetical situation, but I'd prefer not to name names. The journals that are doing this may be doing so under pressure from OA advocates with a strong belief in CC-BY. It has happened to me in a group writing situation that someone else decided to change the group license to CC-BY without checking in with others. I had contributed considerable original writing, and would not have chosen this license. I was not happy, to put it mildly. It may be fortunate that I noticed early on and changed the license for my own work back to my preferred license. It may happen that someone else in a similar situation will find out that someone has used their work someone else decided to release as CC-BY by seeing a paywall on their work, someone else earning royalties on a book they wrote, for example. Given that an increasing portion of academics are working in precarious positions that in some countries may involve pay at below poverty levels, this would be not just legally but also morally wrong. In my opinion, universities and government funding agencies should subsidize reasonable salaries for scholars and lower or free tuition for students before giving a second's thought to subsidizing for-profit commercial publishers. my two bits, Heather Morrison On 2012-08-21, at 10:09 AM, Wilhelmina Randtke wrote: > Something that hasn't come up yet: The open access model has, usually, an > author as an individual, then a separate publisher. A different, > non-standard, non-CC negotiation goes on between the author and publisher > before the article gets released. Depending on what promises were made to > the author, that negotiation might prevent the publisher later changing the > license under which it makes the work available. The author might later be > able to challenge the changed license terms. A random person probably > wouldn't have any way to challenge that. Any challenge would be based on > promises made to the author to affect which venue to publish in, and not > based on the CC license. > > If CC-BY needs to be assigned to meet a regulatory requirement, the CC-BY > license doesn't make that regulatory requirement drop out of the picture. > The regulation will give the terms by which it's met. > > So, that's two things that might later prevent a publisher from releasing > under CC-BY and then later changing and only making the material available on > different terms. Neither of those is in CC-BY, though. Those are related to > circumstances surrounding the publication and any requirement not to change > would come from that. > > -Wilhelmina Randtke > > On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Heather Morrison <hgmor...@sfu.ca> wrote: > Possible solution? > > IF a funding agency were to require that any open access article processing > fees covered by their funding require both CC-BY AND active deposit in a > trusted digital open access archive (OpenDOAR lists thousands), this might be > a solution to the problem that I raise below. > OpenDOAR: http://www.opendoar.org/' > > The controlled LOCKSS or CLOCKSS network provides a useful model to look at, > based on the scenario of a journal ceasing publication) - details about > CLOCKSS can be found here: > http://www.clockss.org/clockss/Home > > Comment: in my opinion, this to me is just one illustration that an open > access future that involves both open access archives and open access > publishing is more sustainable for scholarly communication than either > approach alone. > > Original question follows. > > Many in the open access movement consider CC-BY to be the very embodiment of > the spirit of the Budapest Open Access Initiative - giving away all rights to > one's work, including commercial rights, for open access. My own take on this > is that while CC-BY can provide a useful tool for those fully engaged in the > open access spirit, the license is problematic for open access. This is > important now that funding agencies in the U.K. are beginning to require > CC-BY licenses when they fund open access article processing fees. That is to > say, we are now looking at a situation where organizations that do not have > any commitment to (or even liking for) open access, may be required to use > this license. > > Some questions that I think should be raised at this point: > > The CC-BY legal code, as I read it, does not mention open access, nor is > there any wording to suggest that the license can only be applied to works > that are open access. Here is the URL for the legal code: > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode > > Questions: > > 1. Am I missing something in the legal code, i.e. does it say somewhere > that this license is only for open access works? > > 2. Is there any reason why a publisher could not use a CC-BY license on > toll-access works? (Here I am talking about an original publisher, not a > licensee). > > 3. Is there anything to stop a publisher that uses CC-BY from changing > their license at a later point in time? (Assuming the license is the > publisher's, not the author's). > > 4. Is there anything to stop a toll-access publisher from purchasing an > open access publisher that uses CC-BY, and subsequently selling all the > formerly open access journals under a toll-access model and dropping the open > access versions? The license would not permit a third party to do this, but > what I am asking about is if the original licensor sells to another publisher. > > To sum up, my perspective is that CC-BY, while superficially appearing to be > the embodiment of BOAI, is actually a problematic license with significant > loopholes and serious thought should be given to this before it is > recommended as a standard for open access. > > best, > > Heather Morrison, MLIS > Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication > http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/ > The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics > http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
