Mr Szczepanski appears a little traumatized by by the collectivist practices of a recent past and I cannot blame him for that. However, traumatized or not, he should not build comparisons that simply do not work.
Having rights by law and choosing to relinquish some of them (through Creative Commons licenses for example) is one thing. It is a way in which one may choose to use the full force of the law or not. That is why I used the field metaphor.
Mandating research papers to be in depository is a different issue. In particular, the mandate aims at the author, not the owner of the article. One must remember that in most cases, to publish, scientific authors have to relinquish their rights to a publisher (without pay, it might be added).
In the case of the author, the "walking through the field" metaphor means allowing people to read the paper, and to cite and quote from it at will. It is a non-rivalrous activity. In fact, the more people read my paper, the greater value it takes. To pursue the field metaphor to absurd levels, it would mean that the more I allow people through my field, the greater my crop becomes.
So, the author wants to be read. He/she wants people to walk through the field attached to their name.
Alas, the author does not own his/her text any longer; the publisher does.
The irony of the situation is that authors are mandated to deposit their articles (although they are no longer theirs, except through attribu1tion) because they simply have not yet grasped how profitable it is for them to do so - a point repeatedly made by Stevan Harnad when he explains the OA citation advantage. Publishers are far less sanguine about mandates and express fears about their present business models. To go back to the field metaphor, as owners of the field - the author is no more than a named gardener - publishers, not authors are worried about their rivalrous kind of crop. This is the fundamental point, the publisher's crop is not the same as the author's. The author seeks visibility and exposure; the publisher seeks revenues. The symbolic essence of the author's capital makes it non-rivalrous and works on the basis of unlimited supply - as many people can read an article as many times as they wish without depleting the article. The business model of the publishers is a standard economic model
based on taking advantage of scarcity. Subscriptions create scarcity (with bad consequences for the research enterprise as a whole). Fundamentally, publishers' desires and authors' desires are at odds.
The Romeo/Sherpa list of publishers that allow self-archiving is quite instructive in this regard. If we accept the often-mentioned number of titles of 22-24,000 title (which, incidentally, I do not, but that is another issue which I will not raise further here), one must note that the Romeo/Sherpa lists contains fewer than ten thousand titles (the last time I checked because, today, I could no longer find this kind of figure in the Romeo/Sherpa site and have just written to them). This means that more than half of the titles have not been included in the list and we cannot presume that they allow self-archiving. This means that a majority of titles of journals do not accept self-archiving. Furthermore, the policies in favour of self-archiving vary from one publisher to another, making the scene complex and confusing to the average researcher. This tends to decrease self-archiving by authors by increasing fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).
Coming back to the mandate, this issue allows at least two things: it overcomes author's inertia fed by FUD and it begins to educate them about the realities of scientific publishing and about their own self-interest (being as widely read as possible). Note that the author does not lose anything by the mandate since he/she has already given all to the publisher but attribution. Through self-archiving, the author recovers some measure of control over access to his/her own work. Through mandating, the author is vigorously led to taking care of his/her own self-interest. We do mandate older drivers to have their eyes checked for their own self-interest (and the common good). Nothing wrong with this, I believe, and a comparison of such forms of "coercion" with the Robespierre or Stalin displays a very bad understanding of how one should use history (and I speak as a trained historian here).
Best,
Jean-Claude Guédon
-------- Message d'origine--------
De: American Scientist Open Access Forum de la part de Jan Szczepanski
Date: mer. 05/12/2007 03:28
À: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Objet : Re: Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates
"allow people to walk through your field"
Orwell would have liked this new meaning
of "mandate"
and what about the crops on my field? Can
we mandate that we will have the right to
take that also, in the name of common good?
Without much success I have compared
"mandates" with Stalin's collectivization.
Instead to sell on a market You have to
sell it to the state. In our case to the people
that finance your activities on the field.
What emerged during the first years of the
sad French revolution was the abolishing
of all author rights for the good of all. During
the sad Russian one, you even lost your field.
What is emerging during the OA Revolution?
The same mistakes as usual.
Jan
Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
> I have read John Ewing's (superficial) article about copyright and
> must report that I have not learned a thing I did not already know. I
> should also add that Mr. Ewing's use of the term copyright for
> mid-eighteenth France is completely faulty: there was no copyright in
> France at the time, only King's "privileges". Moreover, when the Old
> Regime disappeared with the Revolution, what emerged were "author's
> rights", not copyright. It is in the tradition of authors' rights that
> "moral rights" evolved, for example.
>
> I repeat: copyright and OA are not - repeat *not* in conflict.
> Copyright is a legal framework protecting the author while OA relies
> on permissions granted by rights' owners. Owners are free not to cling
> to all of their rights.
>
> Let me give you an example: if you own a field, you have property
> rights, including the right to prevent people from trespassing.
> However, you can also allow people to walk through your field without
> penalty and without your losing your ownership rights.
>
> OA (and Creative Commons provisions) rest on this kind of thinking.
>
> I hope this clarifies the point for you.
>
> Best,
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon
>
> Le mardi 04 décembre 2007 08:45 +0100, Jan Szczepanski a écrit :
>> I would recommend Mr Guédon to read John Ewings
>> article "Copyright and authors" in First Monday
>> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_10/ewing/
>>
>> I would say that we are in the same situation as in France
>> 1788-89 by "optimizing mandates"
>>
>> Citation from the article:
>>
>> "This view, however, was soon overwhelmed in 1788-89 by
>> the Revolution. In the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the
>> National Assembly officially sanctioned freedom of the press.
>> Without effective copyright, the freedom was wild and destructive.
>> Anonymous and seditious pamphlets appeared throughout the
>> country; piracy of literary works was rampant; publishers faltered
>> and became insolvent. Officials recognized the need to act, but
>> they debated endlessly, ensnared by the politics of censorship in
>> the midst of the Revolution's turmoil"
>>
>> Jan
>>
>> Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
>> > Open Access does not work against copyright. Articles are placed into
>> > open access only with the agreement of the rights' owners. It has
>> > nothing to do with piracy. Mandates are to deposit in repositories,
>> > not publish in open access against the will of publishers. Those
>> > publishers that allow self-archiving will see the deposited articles
>> > go public. The others can be searched and identified but they cannot
>> > be read without the rights' owners' consent.
>> >
>> > No one in OA is advocating breaking the law.
>> >
>> > As a result, I do not know how your remark fits with Open Access.
>> >
>> > On a different issue, the present system of scientific publishing in
>> > its present, concentrated mode dom inated by a few large international
>> > publishers and a few large scirntific associations is not several
>> > century old; it is about 50 years old.
>> >
>> > Jean-Claude
>> >
>> >
>> > Le lundi 03 décembre 2007 08:42 +0100, Jan Szczepanski a écrit :
>> >> During the French Revolution all kinds of copyrights were abolished.
>> >> They called that freedom. That freedom was abolished a couple of
>> >> years later.
>> >>
>> >> Much of the OA-movement and the creative-common-movement
>> >> are working in that spirit and they fight for freedom but they are just
>> >> trying to destroy a system working well for hundreds of years. Pirat
>> >> copying is not the future.
>> >>
>> >> We need a new Jean Le Chapeliers fighting for Les droits du génie
>> >> and not try to undermine it by "mandates".
>> >>
>> >> Jan
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
>> >> > A much better way is to work with the union. Unions are not against
>> >> > open access, especially when they understand the issues. The problem
>> >> > is more one of ignorance than one of hostility.
>> >> >
>> >> > Student unions can also be approached.
>> >> >
>> >> > Jean-Claude Guédon
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Le vendredi 30 novembre 2007 16:55 +0000, FrederickFriend a écrit :
>> >> >> Trade unions may not strike over copyright, but I still have the bruises to
>> >> >> prove that copyright can cause a furore. At UCL a few years ago I dared to
>> >> >> suggest that UCL might own the copyright in some of the work of its academic
>> >> >> staff. I was vilified internally, the AUT (as it was then) were up in arms,
>> >> >> and I was pilloried in "Private Eye" for daring to make the suggestion. As
>> >> >> you can tell I survived to tell the tale, and appearing in "Private Eye" did
>> >> >> wonders for my image, but don't under-estimate the seething passions under
>> >> >> the calm surface of copyright.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Fred Friend
>> >> >>
>> >> >> ----- Original Message -----
>> >> >> From: "J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk> <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk> <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk>" <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK> <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK> <mailto:J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK>>
>> >> >> To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG <mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG> <mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG> <mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>>
>> >> >> Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 3:57 PM
>> >> >> Subject: Re: Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> 'the general fear of the employer about possible trade union action based on
>> >> >> copyright issues relating to academic research'
>> >> >>
>> >> >> A fanciful argument. As Stevan often points out, scholarly papers - the
>> >> >> subject of this forum - are not money-making propositions anyway. Campus
>> >> >> trade unions and university managements have much more important issues to
>> >> >> fight about. I can't imagine a strike about copyright!
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University, UK (President, Loughborough
>> >> >> University branch of the Association of University Teachers, 1999-2003)
>> >> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
--
Jan Szczepanski
Förste bibliotekarie
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
Box 222
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 773 1164 Fax: +46 31 163797
E-mail: Jan.Szczepanski_at_ub.gu.se
Received on Sat Dec 08 2007 - 11:10:42 GMT