Andrea Rinaldi, Access evolved?EMBO Reports, vol. 9. no. 4 (2008) pp. 317-321 (accessible only to subscribers at least so far). A recap of the rise of OA journals, with some attention to the NIH policy and objections to it from the publishing lobby. Excerpt:
Versatile open access policies are evolving together with scholarly information, but copyright issues remain unsettled....
In practice, OA journals seek to cover their editorial and production costs by charging authors to publish and thus make the final article freely available on the internet. In addition, OA journals require authors to sign a copyright licence that fulfils at least the Budapest definition of OA....
OA has begun to transform the copyright model used by traditional publishers. Historically, the author(s) of an article —while retaining the right to be acknowledged as the creator(s) of the work— usually transferred all other rights to the publisher. In practice, this meant that the publisher had full control over the distribution, use and re-use of scholarly material. Access to and the republication of a paper —even for educational purposes or by the author himself— thus depended on permission from the publisher. OA , instead, limits copyright and licencing restrictions to enable the right for re-use for any responsible purpose (Fig 1)....
Comment. Unfortunately, Rinaldi assumes that all OA journals charge author-side publication fees, when most do not. (More evidence here and here.) She also assumes that all of them are libre OA, under open licenses, when many, perhaps most, are merely gratis OA, limiting users to fair use.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/29/2008 10:21:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
