Re: [GOAL] CC-BY with copyright transfer - correction

[Couture Marc]

Hi all,

Greg Tananbaum, from SPARC, informed me that there has been a change in 2014 in 
the  “Copyrights” criteria of “How open is it”, which now stress authors’ 
rights/permissions more than copyright ownership.

The original, 2013 version I discussed is the one available on SPARC own 
website; Greg told me this will soon be fixed. The version available on PLOS 
website should be the right one, though: 
https://www.plos.org/files/HowOpenIsIt_English.pdf

The fact remains that the very notion of “author/publisher copyright ownership” 
should treated with much caution: as always, one must read the “small print”.

Marc Couture


De : goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] De la part de 
Couture Marc
Envoyé : 24 mai 2016 08:50
À : Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Objet : Re: [GOAL] CC-BY with copyright transfer

Hi all,

I also agree that this is an important, but badly treated/understood issue.

For instance, in SPARC’s “How open is it” scale, author copyright ownership 
gives a minimum of 4 (over 5) for the “Copyrights” criterion, irrespective of 
possible restrictions that, as one sees, may amount in practice to no more 
rights than publisher ownership. Thus Elsevier’s exclusive licence gives them 
4/5 for this criterion.

http://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/hoii_guide_rev4_web.pdf

In 2012, in my response to SPARC’s Request for Comments on a preliminary 
version of this guide, I had stressed this exact problem, explaining that the 
real issue was author control over usage, not copyright ownership per se. I 
don’t know if I was the only one to do so, but nothing was changed in the final 
version. This is the kind of situation that makes me believe that the issue is 
all but well understood.

Marc Couture



De : goal-boun...@eprints.org 
[mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] De la part de Peter Murray-Rust
Envoyé : 24 mai 2016 04:38
À : Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Objet : Re: [GOAL] CC-BY with copyright transfer

I agree with Heather, this is unclear and needs checking. There is a difference 
between the author of a work and the owner. I would agree that it appears to be 
a deceptive practice. I have had similar problems "arguing" with Elsevier about 
text-and-datamining "licences" where the licences apparently give rights to 
Elsevier.

I will try to get an informal opinion.

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 6:18 PM, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:
Elsevier's copyright page provides a very clear example of copyright transfer 
combined with CC licenses. Elsevier is not alone in this practice; I see this 
quite frequently while looking for APCS.

The Elsevier copyright page:
https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/policies/copyright

States under "for open access articles":
"Authors sign an exclusive license agreement, where authors have copyright but 
license exclusive rights in the article to the publisher. In this case authors 
have the right to share their articles in the same ways permitted to third 
parties..."

This language makes it very clear that when Elsevier applies CC licenses, 
Elsevier (or one of its partners)  is the Licensor or copyright holder, even 
when there is a copyright statement indicating the author holds copyright.

I argue that this is a deceptive practice that I call author nomination 
copyright.

This is important,  because CC licenses place obligations downstream for 
licensees, not Licensor. The copyright holder of a CC license has no obligation 
to continue to provide a copy of the work under the same terms in perpetuity 
(unless there is a separate contract).

To assess the extent of this practice one must examine journal/author 
contracts, not just visible indications, because even if an author is licensed 
CC-BY and indicates the author as copyright holder, it may actually be the 
publisher who owns all the rights under copyright.

best,

Heather Morrison




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--
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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[GOAL] Platform cooperativism: alternative to explore for scholarly social sharing?

[Heather Morrison]

For anyone looking for alternatives to the SSRN Elsevier sell-out scenario:

The idea of platform cooperativism looks like it might be worth exploring as an 
alternative for social scholarly sharing. The idea is that contributors are 
members / partners who have equity.

Article here:
http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-stars-like-uber-to-create-a-real-sharing-economy

I am not an expert, just found this interesting and relevant.

best,

Heather Morrison
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[GOAL] “After SSRN: Hallmarks of trust for subject repositories” - OpenAIRE blog post

[Ross-Hellauer, Anthony]

Dear list subscribers,

Just to alert you to a new post on the OpenAIRE blog that might be of interest 
to you, entitled “After SSRN: Hallmarks of trust for subject repositories”.

In the aftermath of the recent sale of the social sciences pre-print and 
publishing community platform SSRN to Elsevier, I offer a personal view on the 
nature of trust in community platforms and the need to make clear the hallmarks 
of trust for subject repositories, namely open governance, open source, open 
data.

Excerpt:

The issue here is not that the company has been sold, nor that it has been sold 
to Elsevier specifically (though the fact that the buyer is the bête noire of 
the open access narrative surely doesn’t help). There is of course a place for 
private companies in the scholarly communications ecosystem. Running a 
for-profit is undoubtedly very hard and for many small companies, acquisition 
is their long term exit strategy. The issue here is not public versus private 
but rather a wider one of trust. Services like Mendeley or SSRN are ”social” in 
nature – built to a large extent upon the contributions of their communities of 
users.  If communities of users bring much of the value that fuels services 
like SSRN, why should they be content to take at face value promises which 
might quickly disintegrate once they come into conflict with money-making? 
Surely these communities deserve a stake in deciding what happens to those 
services. Had users known that SSRN would eventually sell to Elsevier, many 
would not have joined in the first place. Now that they have, many would like 
to take their community elsewhere – with former users like  Paul 
Gowder
 already discussing starting a new open repository for the social sciences, for 
example. These issues lead naturally to the questions: what does an “open 
repository” look like? How are users to identify one, and upon which criteria 
should librarians and others responsible for recommending such services decide 
whether a service is to be recommended?
See: https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=933

Apologies if not relevant to you!

Best to all

Tony


Dr. Tony Ross-Hellauer

OpenAIRE Scientific Manager
University of Göttingen
Email: 
ross-hella...@sub.uni-goettingen.de
Tel: +49 551 39-31818
Twitter: @tonyR_H

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