Re-Use Rights Already Come With the (Green) OA Territory:
Judicet Lector
Stevan Harnad
Hyperlinked Version:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/308-guid.html
SUMMARY: Not one, not two, but three of my valued OA comrades-at-arms
have so far publicly registered their disagreement with my position on
"re-use" rights.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007/10/more-on-ukpmc-publishers-panel.ht
ml
http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind07&L=american-scientist-open-a
ccess-forum&D=1&O=D&F=l&S=&P=95934
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=668
Here is my summary of the points at issue: Judicet Lector.
INDIVIDUAL RE-USE CAPABILITIES: If a document's full-text is freely
accessible online (OA), that means any individual can (1) access it,
(2) read it, (3) download it, (4) store it (for personal use), (5)
print it off (for personal use), (6) "data-mine" it and (7) re-use
the results of the data-mining in further research publications
(but they may not re-publish or re-sell the full-text itself:
"derivative works" must instead link to its URL).
ROBOTIC HARVESTABILITY: In addition, (8*) robotic harvesters like
Google can harvest and index the freely available Web-based text,
making it boolean full-text searchable. (9*) Robotic data-miners can
also harvest the full-text, machine-analyse it, and re-use the results
for research purposes (but they may not re-publish or re-sell the
full-text itself: "derivative works" must instead link to its URL).
OA IS ABOUT ACCESS AND USE, NOT RE-PUBLICATION OR RE-SALE: Online
re-publishing or re-sale rights were never part of OA, any more than
on-paper re-publishing or re-sale rights were; nor do they need to be,
because of all the capabilities that come with the free online
territory.
THE GREEN OA TERRITORY: Capabilities (1)-(9*) all come automatically
with the Green OA territory. Hence there is no need to pay for
Gold OA to have these capabilities, nor any need for further re-use
rights beyond those already inherent in Green OA. Sixty-two percent
of journals today already endorse Green OA self-archiving, Gold
OA includes Green OA: If you do elect to pay a publisher for Gold
OA, you also get the right to deposit your refereed final draft
["postprint"] in your own OA Institutional Repository. Hence even
here there is no need for further "re-use rights." (If you pay for
"Gold OA" without also getting this Green OA, you have done something
exceedingly foolish.)
"HARVESTING RIGHTS"? If authors self-archive their articles on the
web, freely accessibly (Green OA), robots like Google can and do
harvest and data-mine them, and have been doing so without exception
or challenge, for years now.
WHAT ABOUT GRAY PUBLISHERS? With Gray publishers (i.e., neither
Green nor Gold) the interim solution today is (i) Immediate Deposit
(IDOA) Mandates, (ii) Closed Access deposit for Gray articles,
and (iii) reliance on the semi-automatized "Email Eprint Request"
("Fair Use") Button to provide for individual researchers' usage
and re-usage needs for these Gray articles during any Closed Access
embargo interval (but note that the Fair Use Button cannot provide
for robotic harvesting and data-mining of these embargoed full-texts).
EXTRA GOLD OA RIGHTS? For those articles published in the 38% of
journals that are still non-Green today, I think that relying on
(i)-(iii) above is a far better interim strategy for attaining 100%
OA for one and all than to pay hybrid Gray/Gold publishers for Gold
OA today. But regardless of whether you agree that (i)-(iii) is the
better strategy in such cases, what is not at issue either way is
whether Gold OA itself requires or provides "re-use" rights over
and above those capabilities already inherent in Green OA -- hence
whether in paying for Gold OA one is indeed paying for something
that is needed for research but not already vouchsafed by Green OA.
As not one, not two, but no fewer than three of my valued OA
comrades-at-arms have so far publicly registered their disagreement
with my position on one (possibly two) points of detail concerning
"re-use" rights, it is perhaps worthwhile taking a closer look at
these points to see exactly what is and is not at issue:
Individual re-use capabilities. The concern is about "re-use rights,"
but I prefer to speak of "re-use capabilities." My OA comrades suggest
that these consist of more than just the ability to read, and they are
certainly right about that: If a document is OA -- i.e., if its
full-text is freely accessible online, immediately and permanently,
webwide -- then that means that any individual, webwide, can (1) access
the document online, (2) read it, (3) download it, (4) store it (for
personal use), (5) print it off (for personal use), (6) "data-mine" it
and (7) re-use the results of the data-crunching in further research and
research publications (however, they may not re-publish or re-sell the
full-text itself, in "derivative works," either online or in print,
without permission, beyond a reasonable number of quoted/cited excerpts:
instead, they may only link to the OA full-text's URL in such derivative
works, leaving the user to click to access it).
Robotic harvestability. In addition to the individual re-use
capabilities (1-7), there are the following: (8*) Robotic harvesters
like Google can harvest the freely available Web-based text (exactly as
they harvest all other texts that are freely available on the Web) and
inverse-index it, thereby making it searchable by boolean full-text
search in their search engines. (9*) Robotic data-miners can also
harvest the text, machine-analyse it, and re-use the results of their
data-crunching for research purposes in further research and research
publications (however, they may not re-publish or re-sell the full-text
itself, in "derivative works," either online or in print, without
permission, beyond a reasonable number of quoted/cited excerpts:
instead, they may only link to the OA full-text's URL in such derivative
works, leaving the user to click to access it).
The Green OA territory. All the above -- (1)-(7) plus (8*)-(9*) --
already come automatically with the (Green) OA territory when a
full-text is made freely accessible online, immediately and permanently,
webwide. It is for this reason that I continue to insist -- and this is
the fundamental point of disagreement with my three OA comrades -- that
there is no need whatsoever for any further re-use rights beyond what
already comes automatically with the Green OA territory. In particular,
there is no need to pay extra for Gold OA, in order to "purchase" these
"extra" re-use rights. Nor is there any need to add any further re-use
rights to Gold OA copyright agreements (although formalizing the rights
is always fine, and a good idea).
Gold OA includes Green OA. If you have paid a publisher for Gold OA, you
have, among other things, certainly paid for the right to deposit your
refereed final draft ["postprint"] in your own OA Institutional
Repository (along with any XML tagging you may wish to add to facilitate
usage, search, harvesting and data-mining): hence you already have
(1)-(9*). Hence what you are paying for, if you elect to pay for Gold
OA, is not extra re-use rights, but simply Gold OA, which already
includes Green OA, which in turn already provides all the requisite
re-use capabilities.
Gold OA without Green OA? If any author (or funder) were ever to pay for
"Gold OA" without thereby also getting the publisher's blessing to
deposit the refereed final draft (postprint) in the author's own
Institutional OA Repository, then that author (or funder) would be doing
something exceedingly foolish. (I know of no "Gold OA" today that does
not automatically include Green OA.) But, apart from that, paying for
Gold OA is still an unnecessary expenditure today for all except those
to whom money is no object and who consider paid Gold OA to be worth the
cost because it helps promote Gold OA, reinforcing the fact that it is a
potentially viable cost-recovery model. Gold OA itself is certainly not
necessary for any re-use needs that are purportedly not fulfillable
through Green OA alone.
Pay for Green OA rights? The second possible point of disagreement with
my three OA comrades, a more minor one, would be about whether it is
worth paying for Gold OA to a hybrid Gray/Gold publisher who does not
endorse Green OA self-archiving except if paid for Gold OA: I'm inclined
to say that Closed Access self-archiving in your Institutional
Repository (IR), along with the IR's "Email Eprint Request" Button, is a
much better strategy than paying such a hybrid Gray/Gold publisher for
Gold OA in such cases, because it facilitates exception-free IDOA
Deposit Mandates. But this is a less important point of disagreement
than the logical, practical point about whether paid Gold OA is indeed
needed for certain re-use rights.
"Harvesting rights"? I will close on the sole potentially substantive
matter on which my three OA comrades do have at least a theoretical
point -- but, I will argue, a point that has no practical import: The
reason I put an asterisk after 8* and 9* is that it can be argued that
whereas the individual uses (1) - (7) do indeed come with the territory
if one makes a document freely accessible on the web, this does not
necessarily cover robotic uses such as harvesting.
"Could?" is trumped by "Does." I will give a very simple and pragmatic
answer: "Can," "could," "cannot" and "could not" are all trumped here by
"does." My OA comrades are needlessly reasoning hypothetically in this
case, when the objective evidence is already in: "If authors were to
self-archive their articles on the web, freely accessibly (Green OA), as
described above, could robots like Google harvest and data-mine them?"
The answer is a resounding "yes": they could, and can, as demonstrated
by that fact that they already do, without exception or challenge, for
years now!
Articles vs. books. We are not talking here about the full-texts of
books, ambivalently provided to Google by their publishers (and
authors), or scanned directly by Google, with certain conditions imposed
by their publishers and authors on their re-use. We are talking about
authors' final drafts (postprints) of their peer-reviewed journal
articles, self-archived free for all by their authors in order to
maximize their accessibility, usage and impact. In the case of books,
there can be and have been contentious harvesting issues. But in the
case of self-archiving, not a single article's harvestability has been
contested, and we already have a decade and a half of precedent and
practice behind us in this. So those who are worrying about the need to
formally guarantee Google's (and other harvesters') "right" to do what
they are already doing, without exception or challenge, since the advent
of the Web, are worrying about a notional obstacle, not a real one.
OA is not about or for re-publication or re-sale, online or in print; OA
is about access and use. Before replying to insist that I am wrong about
about "re-use" being a nonproblem for self-archived postprints, may I
ask my readers please to recall (i) the parentheticals I carefully
inserted earlier, concerning both individual users and harvesters:
"(though they may not re-publish or re-sell the full-text itself, in
"derivative works," either online or in print, without permission,
beyond a reasonable number of quoted/cited excerpts: instead, they may
only link to the OA full-text's URL in such derivative works, leaving
the user to click to access it)". None of that is part of OA, nor has it
ever been ("BBB" Declarations to the contrary notwithstanding). OA is
something new that has been made possible by a new medium: the Web.
"Online re-publishing or re-sale rights" were never part of OA any more
than on-paper re-publishing or re-sale rights were -- nor do they need
to be, because of what comes with the OA territory (i.e., with being
freely accessible to one and all online).
What About Gray Publishers? Recall also that (ii) Gold OA already
includes Green OA (as part of what you are paying for) and that (iii)
with Gray publishers (i.e., those that are neither Green nor Gold) the
interim solution for now is Immediate Deposit mandates plus the
semi-automatized "Email Eprint Request" or "Fair Use" Button for any
Closed Access deposits. That does provide for individual researchers'
uses and re-uses even for this "Gray" literature (meaning non-Green,
non-Gold journal articles) -- although it does not provide for robotic
harvesting and data-mining of the (Closed Access) full-texts, just their
metadata.
IDOA and the Button -- or Paid Gold OA? Here, as I said, my colleagues
and I may agree to disagree on the second, minor point, as to whether
(a) it is a better strategy to rely, for now, on mandated IDOA and the
Button for articles published in non-Green journals (38%), trusting that
that will eventually force those journals to go Green (62%)? or, rather,
(b) it is a better strategy to pay for Gold OA right now? But note that
what is not at issue either way is whether Gold OA itself requires or
provides "re-use" rights over and above those capabilities already
provided by Green OA -- hence whether in paying for Gold OA one is
indeed paying for something that is needed for research, but not already
vouchsafed by Green OA.
Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
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AND
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Received on Sun Oct 14 2007 - 16:11:23 BST