While D-Lib Magazine allows free access to their articles, and grants
limited rights to non-commercial users (all good things), their articles are
not open access, at least not by any of the widely accepted definitions.
The D-Lib Magazine Access Terms and Conditions read:
Materials contained in D-Lib and D-Lib Magazine are subject to copyright
claims and other proprietary rights. Permission is hereby given for the
material in D-Lib and D-Lib Magazine to be used for research purposes or
more general non-commercial purposes. We ask that you observe the following
conditions:
a.. Please cite individual author and D-Lib or D-Lib Magazine when using
the materials.
b.. Please do not abridge, alter, or edit material in any way that alters
the author's intentions.
Any commercial use of these materials requires explicit, prior authorization
from CNRI.
While acknowledging that "there are many degrees and kinds of wider and
easier access to" the literature, the BOAI definition of open access could
not be clearer:
By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the
public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute,
print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for
indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those
inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint
on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work
and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
Stevan seems intent on grossly diluting this definition:
>
> This also happens to be what a user can normally do with everything else
> he finds on the web (that is not behind a toll-barrier). He may do all
> the above, but he may not (1) republish it (or an altered version of it),
> either in a paper edition or online on the web or an email list and (2)
> may not pass it off as his own. He may, however, insert links to its
> URL in other published materials.
>
> That's the default option on the web; it's what comes with the territory
> when one can access digital material with a click. More requires
> permissions.
>
> It is also the default condition for Open Access.
>
So everything that is on a website anywhere is open access so long as its
not behind a toll barrier? That's absurd.
The default condition for open access is not simply being able to access
digital material with a click. The term open access was coined specifically
to describe a higher form of freedom - one that went beyond the default
rights granted to users of web content by explicitly permiting
redistribution and reuse without the need to get permission. While YOU may
think these rights are superfluous, many supporters of open access disagree,
it only confuses things and damages our common cause if we conflate posting
something on the web with open access.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 7:06 AM
Subject: Open Access Does Not require Republishing and Reprinting Rights
> In an editorial entitled "Open Access and Public Domain,"
> in D-Lib Magazine December 2003 Volume 9 Number
> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december03/12editorial.html
> Editor Bonita Wilson wrote:
>
> "'open access'... is occasionally confused with public domain, i.e.,
> that material easily accessible on the net is also freely available
> for reuse of any kind... As an example of open access materials that
> are not in the public domain, D-Lib Magazine content is available,
> without charge, to anyone with an Internet connection; materials
> contained in the magazine are subject to copyright claims and other
> proprietary rights... Republication or reprinting of articles
> requires permission from the... copyright [holders]... Most of
> the material in D-Lib Magazine, though provided via "open access,"
> is not in the public domain."
>
> I think this is entirely correct. D-Lib, not being a peer-reviewed
> journal, does not fall within the scope of the Budapest Open Access
> Initiative (BOAI), but if it *were* a peer-reviewed journal, it would
> certainly be an open-access ("gold") journal, despite the fact that
> republication and reprinting [note, this does not refer to printing
> off a hard copy for one's own use, but pass printing and distribution]
> require permission.
>
> There is absolutely no problem with this. The uses already permitted
> include all those that research requires: reading, downloading, storing,
> printing off, computer-processing and analyzing, and linking.
>
> This also happens to be what a user can normally do with everything else
> he finds on the web (that is not behind a toll-barrier). He may do all
> the above, but he may not (1) republish it (or an altered version of it),
> either in a paper edition or online on the web or an email list and (2)
> may not pass it off as his own. He may, however, insert links to its
> URL in other published materials.
>
> That's the default option on the web; it's what comes with the territory
> when one can access digital material with a click. More requires
> permissions.
>
> It is also the default condition for Open Access.
>
> I would only make one slight correction: Granting those further rights
> and permissions does not necessarily entail putting the material in the
> public domain. As I understand it, an author who does the latter more
> or less renounces all legal rights (including the requirement that his
> authorship should be acknowledged in all republications and that the text
> should not be corrupted). Various creative-commons licenses grant users
> republishing and reprinting rights without having to put the material
> in the public domain.
>
> "Re: The Urgent Need to Plan a Stable Transition"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0078.html
>
> "Re: Science 4 September on Copyright"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0092.html
>
> "Re: Legal ways around copyright for one's own giveaway texts"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0602.html
>
> "Re: Copyright: Form, Content, and Prepublication Incarnations"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1612.html
>
> "Public Access to Science Act (Sabo Bill, H.R. 2613)"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2977.htm
>
> But for the purposes of Open Access, the only thing that needs to
> be noted is that the right to republish and reprint is not a necessary
> condition for open access (though in some cases it may be a welcome
> one).
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
> access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004)
> is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum:
> To join the Forum:
>
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> Post discussion to:
> american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
> Hypermail Archive:
> http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
>
> Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy:
> BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access
> journal whenever one exists.
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals
> BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable
> toll-access journal and also self-archive it.
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
> http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
>
Received on Thu Jan 15 2004 - 21:49:20 GMT