On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Peter Hirtle wrote:
> a publisher might respond that in a digital age, where it is
> possible to purchase from the publisher a copy of an article for
> immediate access, anyone bypassing that system is far from being
> "fair."
Research is not funded, conducted, or published in order to provide
revenue for publishers. Researchers reluctantly agreed to toll-gated
usage in the paper era, because that was the only way they could
reach users at all, and it cost a lot of money that had to be recovered.
This is no longer true in the online era, and publishers just have to
get used to it. The only service that researchers still need from them
is (the implementation of) peer review. That costs incomparably less. If
and when it is the *only* service publishers render to (peer-reviewed
research journal article-) authors, they can and will be paid for it, on
the Gold OA cost-recovery model -- out of the much larger windfall
institutional savings from having cancelled all journal subscriptions.
But while journal subscriptions are still paying the costs (most of
which pertain to producing the paper edition and the PDF, neither of
which are essentials any more), researchers can and will and should make
their research accessible to *all* of its would-be users, and not just
to those whose institutions can afford the tolls for the publisher's
version.
That's only fair -- unless you think the publishing tail should continue
to wag the research dog:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/277-guid.html
> The limitations of a papyrocentric world, where
> controlling and charging for the use of individual articles was
> difficult have given way to a world where it is possible to be
> "fairer" - and charge for each individual use.
Fairer to whom, for what? Research is not funded, conducted, or published
in order to provide revenue for publishers.
> It was ok to send to a
> requester a physical copy of an offprint of your article that you
> had purchased (or been given) by the publisher, since no
> reproduction was involved. It is less clear that making a
> photocopy of that article to send to a requestor is legal - that
> requires a fair use analysis.
No it doesn't. It requires a common sense and historical analysis:
(1) Article authors have been doing it for over a half century.
(2) Anyone who imagines that an author can (or should) be prevented
from photo-copying his *own* article for whatever use he sees fit is
living on another planet. (Some lawyers and IP police might still
be living there.)
> If the requester works for a
> commercial firm and is asking for a copy of the article as part
> of her research, making and sending that copy is probably not a
> fair use (see American Geophysical v. Texaco).
If an individual asks the author for a copy of his published article,
and the author photocopies it and gives it to him, it is no one's
business. I haven't seen the case you mention, but shouldn't it be
"American Geophysical vs. I. M. Author" to fit the point under
contention?
> When you move
> into the realm of email and "fair use" buttons, you have entered
> the realm of systematic copying and distribution that greatly
> challenge the extent of acceptable fair use.
Nope. It's still just individual authors giving away individual
copies of their own articles to individual requesters, as always,
on a case by case basis.
> And remember - if
> you have signed most of the standard copyright transfer
> agreements, the fact that it is "your" article makes no
> difference at all - it could be an article written by anyone.
I don't buy that, insofar as the individual authors of the annual
2.5 million articles in the planet's 25,000 peer-reviewed journals
are concerned. They did it with reprints; they continue to do it with
eprints. And why on earth would anyone imagine that they should or would
stop doing it, pending a "fair use analysis"?
Research is not funded, conducted, or published in order to provide
revenue for publishers. To think otherwise is to imagine that the
publishing tail can and should continue wagging the research dog,
regardless of how dysfunctional it would be for research, researchers,
their institutions, their funders, the R&D industry, and the tax-paying
public that funds the research, and in whose interests the research is
conducted.
> Since doing this may be costing the publisher anywhere from
> $30-$120 per article, it is hard to even argue that
> common-sensically this is "fair."
The only relevant publisher cost is the true cost of peer review. The
rest is all moot (and obsolescent). Research is not funded, conducted,
or published in order to provide revenue for publishers...
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
Chaire de recherche du Canada Professor of Cognitive
Science Institute des sciences cognitives Electronics & Computer
Science
Université du Québec à Montréal University of
Southampton Montréal, Québec
Highfield, Southampton
Canada H3C 3P8 SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Received on Wed Aug 15 2007 - 00:20:24 BST