Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, April 24, 2006

ALPSP on OA archiving and copyright

This morning the ALPSP released its response to the UK Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. Excerpt:
Open Access (the provision of free online access for all to scholarly research articles) is an aim which is closely aligned with the objectives of many of our members, particularly learned societies. For example, the mission of the Royal Society of Chemistry is ‘to foster and encourage the growth and application of [chemical] science by the dissemination of chemical knowledge’; that of the British Ecological Society is 'to advance and support the science of ecology and publicise the outcome of research, in order to advance knowledge, education and their application'; and that of the Society for Endocrinology is 'the advancement of public education in endocrinology'.

There are essentially two ways of achieving the aim of Open Access (OA) – OA publishing, and self-archiving....The [second] means of achieving OA is for the article (often in a prepublication form) to be deposited in a freely accessible archive; these archives may be either subject-based (such as ArXiv in high-energy phyics and related areas – the first such archive to be established, in 1991, or the US National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central), or institution-based – the latter are a more recent development and as yet are relatively thinly populated with content. Until now, publishers have generally been relaxed about permitting (or even helping) authors to self-archive prepublication versions of their work; some have even allowed them to deposit a PDF version of the final published article. However, as the number of archives increases, the systems for cross-searching them become more developed, and research funders begin to insist on self-archiving, some publishers are becoming concerned. Some of our members have found that, where all or most of a journal’s content can be found in an archive, users appear content to use that version rather than the one on the publisher’s website, despite the fact that the latter has undergone peer review and editing, and has additional functionality such as reference linking. Since a recent survey of librarians also shows that usage is an important factor in deciding to cancel a journal, we are worried that self-archiving may result in damage to journals’ viability.

Open Access enthusiasts tend to confuse retention of copyright with the ability to self-archive; however, this is inaccurate and publishers may explicitly permit, limit or even forbid self-archiving whether or not the author has transferred copyright – ALPSP has produced model agreements for both circumstances. Publishers are increasingly introducing some limitations on authors’ ability to self-archive, including a time delay to protect subscription income. However, we are concerned that authors do not always observe these conditions, and archive managers are abdicating any responsibility for removing wrongly posted items.

We would be very concerned at any move which limited or removed publishers’ ability to control the manner and timing of self-archiving, as we believe this could ultimately damage or even destroy the viability of journals. If journals are lost, the valuable functions they perform for the scientific community – not only managing the process of peer review, but also selecting and gathering together in one convenient place a manageable quantity of relevant information for a particular community, as well as developing new features and indeed new journals – will be lost. In addition, those learned society activities (such as conferences, bursaries and research grants, as well as public education) which are partially supported by journal income will also suffer.

The response also has sections on mass digitization initiatives, like the Google Library project; fair use; DRM; orphan works; CC licenses, and other OA-related topics.

Comment. (1) ALPSP is right that OA serves the missions of many of its members. (2) ALPSP is right that when articles are deposited in OA repositories, they attract some readers away from the published versions at publisher web sites, as measured by downloads from the publisher sites. However, there's no evidence to date that decreased publisher downloads translate into decreased subscriptions. Library subscription decisions are orthogonal to user download decisions. (3) The ALPSP's own March 2006 study found that high journal prices far surpass OA archiving as a cause of journal cancellations. (4) ALPSP is right --if I may paraphrase-- that retention of copyright is neither necessary nor sufficient to allow authors to self-archive. It's not necessary because authors don't need the full bundle of rights in order to authorize self-archiving. It's not sufficient in the sense that many journals (for example, Nature and Science) say that they let authors retain copyright but in the fine print insist on exceptions that deprive authors of the right to self-archive. However, retaining copyright simpliciter or without qualification is more than enough to allow authors to self-archive. (5) Funding agencies that encourage or require OA archiving are not amending copyright law, not making funded work uncopyrightable, and not interfering with the freedom of authors to transfer copyright or the freedom of publishers to acquire and hold copyright. (6) The Gowers commission should understand that the rationale for encouraging or requiring OA archiving is to make research literature more accessible, visible, discoverable, and useful. Even if publishers could document harm to themselves, which they have not yet done, funding agencies have a right to lay down conditions making the work they fund benefit more stakeholders rather than fewer. Public funding agencies in particular have a right, and obligation, to put the public interest in access to publicly-funded research ahead the economic interests of a private-sector industry. (7) Funder policies will not undermine peer review. One reason is that journals charging subscription fees are not the only providers of peer review. Another is that the funder policies only apply to articles already published in peer-reviewed journals.