On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Klaus
Graf <klausgraf_at_googlemail.com> wrote:
Klaus Graf:
Every one can repeat my little experiment with [the
Button, using] a mail adress not indicating his name or
affiliation.... OA means: each scholar with internet
access has the same chance to get the paper. Thus it is
clear that your request-button-ideology has NOTHING to do
with OA.
As noted quite prominently on every occasion it has been mentioned,
the eprint request Button is not OA, it is "Almost OA" (because it is
neither instantaneous access nor 100% reliable access). But it
certainly has a great deal to do with OA, and it is worthwhile
reminding those who have forgotten or not understood that the purpose
of the Button is four-fold:
(1) The first purpose of the Button is to make it
possible for all institutions and funders to mandate
immediate deposit (upon acceptance for publication) of
all their refereed research output, not just the 63% that
already has the publisher's blessing to make the deposit
immediately OA. The remaining 37%, too, can be
immediately deposited, but with access set as Closed
Access instead of Open Access, if the author wishes,
during the publisher embargo period. The Button then
allows the author to provide "Almost OA" for the Closed
Access 37% during the embargo.
(2) This not only provides Almost-OA for the would-be
users worldwide needing access to the remaining 37%, but
it makes it possible for institutions and funders to
adopt an exception-free, no-opt-out, immediate-deposit
requirement covering all of their refereed research
output, irrespective of publisher policy. Many
institutions and funders have not succeeded in arriving
at an agreement on adopting a mandate at all yet, simply
because they did not know what could be done about the
37% that did not have the publisher's blessing.
(3) It also provides a far better solution for the
immediate ongoing needs of research and researchers
worldwide during the embargo period allowed by current
Green OA mandates, (a) to couple them with an
immediate-deposit requirement for 100% of output, plus
the Button for the embargoed 37% of it, than (b) either
to allow opt-outs or to allow deposits to be delayed
until the end of the allowable embargo period. 63%
Immediate OA plus 37% Almost-OA is incomparably better
than no access at all during the embargo period, and/or
deposit only after the allowable embargo.
(4) Once Immediate Deposit Mandates plus the "Almost-OA"
Button become universal, the universal practice of
performing immediate deposit and enjoying Immediate OA to
at least 63% of all research output and Immediate
Almost-OA to the rest, along with the universally
palpable benefits of OA will generate mounting and
irresistible global pressure to make all research output
Immediate OA, and that will follow inexorably. All we
need first is universal adoption of the Immediate-Deposit
mandates. (Only keystrokes separate us from Universal OA,
and the mandated mandate those all-important keystrokes!)
Now, having explained (yet again) the importance of the Button toward
the successful adoption and implementation of universal Green OA
mandates, I will try to explain to the puzzled reader (yet again) why
Mr. Graf is at such pains to disparage the "Almost OA" Button as well
as to invoke German Copyright Law against Green OA Mandates: Mr. Graf
is seeking something more than OA. His goal is broad licensed re-use
rights, and he is seeking them for far more than just OA's target
content (refereed journal articles). He has accordingly concluded
that the only way to achieve all of that is by reforming copyright
law so as to allow (or perhaps require) it. He unfortunately does not
offer a practical strategy for how to get all authors, publishers and
governments worldwide (or even just in Germany!) to agree to adopt
the copyright reforms he thinks are necessary (let alone a strategy
that has already been adopted by 65 institutions and governmental
funders worldwide, and is being proposed or considered by many more).
But Mr. Graf does feel that it might be helpful to invoke (his
interpretation) of current (German) copyright law and his own lack of
success in getting some authors to respond to his Button-requests to
try to show that the Green Road, leading toward something short of
what he regards as the right target destination, is impassable.
Fair enough. We all have our ends, and means. In my view, Mr Graf is
mistaken, but it is unlikely that he will stop trying to show that
Green OA does not work until he finds a Road that is at least as
likely to lead to his own preferred destination. In the meanwhile,
however, his objections seem to be getting shriller:
Klaus Graf:
Basing an OA instrument which you falsely think... is
important on personal motives is unethical. Basing the
ability to get a[n] urgently needed medical article in
let us say Gambia on the discretion of wealthy scholars
in the US which are free in their decision and
their prejudices is unethical. Each day people die
because there isn't OA for medical literature. Any delay
of OA and especially propagating a random generator
called request-button is immoral. "The decision to"
deposit an "eprint is a discretionary one, on the part
of the author, and that is exactly how it should be."
This would also be academic freedom.
Although it is rather difficult to sort out the logic here, Mr. Graf
seems to be suggesting that it would be immoral for an author not to
fulfill an eprint request (via the Button) for his
publisher-embargoed health-related article (I quite agree), but that
it would also be both unethical (against academic freedom) and
illegal (in German law) to require that author to deposit his article
in his IR, or to require him to make it OA, or to provide the Button
so he can choose whether or not to fulfill the request from Gambia,
or to provide OA + Almost-OA as an interim means of reaching 100%
Immediate Deposit Mandates and thence universal OA. Nothing short of
the universal copyright reform Mr. Graf advocates, now, would be
ethical (or legal).
I wish Mr. Graf well in his goal of copyright reform. I urge him to
pursue it through some more positive, practical means than just
disparaging Green OA. Meanwhile, we have heard his views repeatedly
on this Forum (which is a Forum devoted to practical OA
policy-making) and I urge him to post again if and when he has
something constructive and substantive to say about policies that
will accelerate or facilitate our reaching universal OA.
Stevan Harnad
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On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Klaus Graf
<klausgraf_at_googlemail.com> wrote:
2009/2/15 Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_gmail.com>:
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Klaus Graf
<klausgraf_at_googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> As I have shown at http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5193609/ the
Request
>> button isn't legal in Germany.
I have serious doubts that you have the knowledge to refute my legal
interpretations of German copyright law. How many years have you
studied German copyright law? I am not a lawyer but experienced in
this field since 1989.
>> Or simply NO - ...most scholars in my several tests have'nt
reacted on my
>> request button tests.
>
> (4) Mr. Graf, I cannot explain why some of the authors from whom
you have
> requested eprints have declined to fulfill your eprint-request.
Every one can repeat my little experiment with a mail adress not
indicating his name or affiliation. I am sure that a harvard.edu
adress will have higher rates. Writing in English to an Quebec
scientist will have very low rates. I am sure that some racist
Mississipi scholars will be unwillingly to fulfill a request from a
Mohammed N.
OA means: each scholar with internet access has the same chance to
get
the paper. Thus it is clear that your request-button-ideology has
NOTHING to do with OA.
> (5) The decision to send a reprint or eprint is a discretionary
one, on the
> part of the author, and that is exactly how it should be.
Basing an OA instrument which you falsely think it is important on
personal motives is unethical. Basing the ability to get a urgently
needed medical article in let us say Gambia on the discretion of
wealthy scholars in the US which are free in their decision and their
prejudices is unethical. Each day people die because there isn't OA
for medical literature. Any delay of OA and especially propagating a
random generator called request-button is immoral.
"The decision to" deposit an "eprint is a discretionary one, on the
part of the author, and that is exactly how it should be." This would
also be academic freedom.
Klaus Graf
Received on Sun Feb 15 2009 - 23:37:15 GMT