Comments on: Will Self-Archiving Cause Libraries to Cancel Journal Subscriptions?

By: Stevan Harnad

Stevan Harnad — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:42:20 +0000

There is no permissions problem or barrier at all for self-archived full-texts deposited by their authors in their institutional repositories, free for all. All the rest of the legitimate uses come with the territory: harvesting, indexing, linking, finding, downloading, reading, storing, data-crunching, printing-off (own use). Nothing else is needed. Course packs can list URLs. And no one ever said OA referred to anything but the online draft: distributing multiple printed copies would be a whole ‘nother matter. So would “republishing” (though I can’t think why anyone would want to, once it’s already OA. (See the “Free Access vs. Open Access thread, began Aug 2003).

By: Bill Hooker

Bill Hooker — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:38:08 +0000

some key OA advocates feel it is far more important to get as many as possible e-prints available under any terms than it is to fight this issue

Yes, I wrote about this — it was quite a revelation for me — and one such advocate left a comment on my entry.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:18:07 +0000

I think that there is more awareness of the issue, but I don’t think that it will be resolved anytime soon. It is a big step for publishers compared to maintaining traditional copyright arrangements and just granting back to the author limited self-archiving rights. Moreover, some key OA advocates feel it is far more important to get as many as possible e-prints available under any terms than it is to fight this issue. Prior to the BOAI going public, I brought up this concern and engaged in mini-debate about it to no avail.

By: Bill Hooker

Bill Hooker — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 23:36:35 +0000

Just because e-prints are in an OA archive does not mean that they are free of copyright restrictions

OK, finally I understand the point you are making. (Thanks for being patient.)

But, but — given what the BBB declarations *do* say, isn’t this situation rather counter to the spirit of OA? Is there any move afoot to have repositories provide blanket licensing for all their content, so that one does not have to search article-by-article to find out what is and is not permitted?

By: Charles

Charles — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 20:04:20 +0000

Just because e-prints are in an OA archive does not mean that they are free of copyright restrictions. The BOAI and other declarations have no legal force; copyright law does. Each e-print has its own copyright status, and it may be under the terms and conditions of a publisher copyright assignment agreement if the copyright has been transferred to the publisher. While deposit in a digital repository grants the right to read the e-print, it does not grant other rights unless they are explicitly stated in a license or copyright statement.

By: Bill Hooker

Bill Hooker — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 06:18:29 +0000

Just because a work is freely available doesn’t mean it is free of copyright restrictions.

Sure, I can retain all rights but those which allow you freely to *read* the article in question. But then I wouldn’t claim to be making the article available via OA, given how I understand the BBB declarations. For instance, Bethesda and Berlin say:

For a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in advance to let users “copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship

So I still don’t understand how postprints, or anything else, in an OA archive can be off-limits for copying.

By: Charles

Charles — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 13:47:49 +0000

Legal deposit can only be made with the permission of the copyright holder unless a work’s copyright statement says otherwise. Just because a work is freely available doesn’t mean it is free of copyright restrictions. Nor does it mean that the copyright holder is the author, who may have deposited the work under the terms of the publisher’s copyright transfer agreement.

By: Bill Hooker

Bill Hooker — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 02:11:33 +0000

If such repositories could not be trusted, then libraries would have to attempt to archive the postprints in question themselves; however, since postprints are not by default under copyright terms that would allow this to happen (e.g., they are not under Creative Commons Licenses)

I don’t get this. If the articles in a given repository are OA, why can’t they be copied to another archive? (And if they’re not, what was the point of repositing them there?)