I don't think due consideration has been given to WHY some publishers might
legitimately object. Their concern is that making their content freely
available may ultimately undermine their sales revenue - and, although this
has not yet proved to be the case, no one can say for sure that they are
wrong about the longer term.
Trying to circumvent publishers' objections by more or less devious means
does not seem to me to be a good way to proceed
Sally
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Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:51 AM
Subject: Re: Copyright: Form, Content, and Prepublication Incarnations
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, [identity deleted] wrote:
>
> > >On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Carole Brault wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I still have to verify : did the professor keep the "pre-print" of
these
> > > > articles ? I would say NO.
> >
> > On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Stevan Harnad wrote
> > >
> > >No you don't have to verify it. The author just has to scan in his
> > >old texts and then self-archive them. But do recommend self-archiving
> > >present and future preprints, as not all publishers are as progressive
> > >yet in this regard as Elsevier is.
> >
> > Am I missing something? Carole Brault's message seems to be saying that
> > the professor no longer had print or digital versions of the preprints.
In
> > your reply, are you suggesting that she scans copies of the published
> > version and self-archives them?
>
> You are not missing anything: I will requote below the relevant passages
> of http://authors.elsevier.com/ about which I wrote that "Between II and
> III the author has plenty of leeway to scan in and digitize his legacy
> texts... and then self-archive them on his institutional server. This
> is neither publishing nor commercial":
>
> "As an [Elsevier] author, you retain [the following]
> rights... without the need to obtain specific permission from
> Elsevier:
>
> [II] "The right to publish a different or extended version of the
paper
> so long as it is sufficiently new to be considered a new work.
>
> [III] "The right to re-use parts of the paper in other works, provided
that
> the new work is not to be published commercially."
>
> It is of no interest or legal import whatsoever how the author gets all
> or part of his own paper in digital form -- whether by retrieving it
> from an old file in his word-processor, or by scanning and OCR'ing it.
>
> [Note that not all publishers are as liberal as Elsevier about the
> self-archiving of legacy texts. That's why I added: "But do recommend
> self-archiving present and future preprints, as not all publishers are
> as progressive yet in this regard as Elsevier is."
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#copyright1 ]
>
> > I read the passage on self-archiving on the Elsevier site (see below)
and
> > my understanding of what they are saying is that it is OK to
self-archive
> > the preprint version but NOT the published version. Wouldn't scanning
his
> > old texts constitute the articles "as published"?
> >
> > "Elsevier does not require that authors remove from publicly
> > accessible servers versions of their paper that differ from
> > the version as published by Elsevier. Posting of the article as
> > published on a public server can only be done with Elsevier's
> > specific written permission."
>
> I would say that the Elsevier wording contains some ambiguity, but the
> ambiguity is entirely in the author's favor. I repeat: Go ahead and
> self-archive and stop worrying about unscruing the inscrutable!
>
> > Also, when Elsevier say they do not require removal of preprints that
> > DIFFER from the published version. Could this not be interpreted as
saying
> > that the author SHOULD remove the preprint if the journal publishes the
> > article without changes ?
>
> No. This can and should be interpreted as the fact that where there has
> been no change to a text since it was preprint, there has been no change
> in the text since it was a preprint (sic):
>
> "As an [Elsevier] author, you retain [the following] rights... without
> the need to obtain specific permission from Elsevier:
>
> [I] "The right to retain a preprint version of the article on a
> public electronic server such as the World Wide Web."
>
> Elsewhere it is added:
>
> "A preprint of an article doesn't count as prior publication.
> Authors don't have to remove electronic preprints from publicly
> accessible servers"
>
> [I have to admit that I do feel rather foolish going over this wording
> with a fine toothcomb as if it were Holy Writ! It would be a good idea
> if everyone else also realized just how foolish it was too, so we could
> all move on to doing something more useful, like self-archiving!]
>
> I might add in passing as to the following passage:
>
> "We ask authors not to update articles on public servers to match
> the articles we publish"
>
> If I had written this rather impressionistic passage, I certainly would
> not want to stake anything on invoking and applying it in court...
>
> > As Eprint Archive Project Officer, I must advise our academics on the
> > copyright issues relating to self-archiving. I need to be really clear
> > about exactly what the publishers will and will not allow (without
writing
> > to them if possible - as I agree that this can be counter-productive)
>
> With passages like the above, I strongly recommend that you use common
> sense and resist any temptation to adopt a scriptural hermeneutic stance.
> Obviously not even the people who wrote these passages gave them that
> much thought!
>
> > Our eprint archive is new so I want to get my facts straight at the
outset.
>
> Here are the facts: Physicists (and many others) have been sensibly
> self-archiving their own preprints and postprints for over 12 years now
> without once having given it a second thought (and with only 4 removals
> out of a quarter million papers, for copyright reasons). Advise your
> authors to do likewise. Leave the toothcombing to any journal minded
> to request that a paper be removed, and cross that bridge when you come
> to it, on a case by case basis. (Let's take up the topic again when you
> reach 62,500 papers self-archived!)
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3188.html
>
> > We will be advising our academics to assign copyright to the publisher
but
> > make it clear that they are retaining the right to self-archive a copy
of
> > the postprint version. However, it is likely that we will get some
> > requests about self-archiving previously published articles.
>
> First, advise your authors not to bother asking the 55% that already
> support self-archiving:
>
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm
>
> If they want to ask the rest, fine; but better still, do as the far
> more sensible physicists did: self-archive, and decide whether or not to
> withdraw only if and when someone ever asks!
>
> > By the way, the University recently endorsed an "eprint archive policy"
> > so it will be interesting to see what effect this will have on our
ability
> > to populate the archive.
>
> I don't know what an "eprint archive policy" is. If it is a policy of
creating
> an eprint archive and inviting your authors to self-archive, that is
> definitely not enough. Try this instead:
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0022.gif
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
> access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
> the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
> Post discussion to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
>
> Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy:
> BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access
> journal whenever one exists.
> BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable
> toll-access journal and also self-archive it.
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
> http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0026.gif
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0021.gif
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0024.gif
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0028.gif
Received on Mon Dec 29 2003 - 15:40:45 GMT
