Many thanks to Michael Eisen for citing the source for his prior
posting about a question of interpretation in the new Nature Licensing
Agreement. The question is about one ambiguous sentence -- not in the
Nature License itself, or the official Nature FAQ about it, but in a
promotional Nature news-item that was written about it. I am rather
confident -- though I am fully prepared to admit it publicly if I prove
to be wrong -- that my (charitable) interpretation of this sentence is
the correct one.

First the background context (from the news item):
[access requires first getting free Nature login]
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v421/n6918/full/421001a_fs.html
http://makeashorterlink.com/?K17821C03

     "[Nature authors may post] their paper on their own website... -- any
     site devoted to them, whether owned by them or by a not-for-profit
     employer."

Now, the sentence in question (from the news item):

    "['Their own'] does not mean open archival websites, such as those
    that host collections of articles by an institution's researchers"

I will communicate my query about the interpretation of this sentence in
the following open letter to Philip Campbell, Editor of Nature:

Dear Phil:

I became aware only recently of Nature's change in copyright policy.
It was very gratifying to see that Nature, having not long ago led the
journal hierarchy in explicitly formulating Nature authors' right to
self-archive their unrefereed preprints on their own website,
has now extended this to the self-archiving of the published postprint
(and also, very generously, to the postprints of all of the author's
past Nature articles).

Some questions have been raised, however, about one sentence in a Nature
news item (not the License itself) that seems to put a restriction on
what is meant by "their own website." My own interpretation of what this
means is: the website provided by the author's institution (usually
a university) for its own institutional research output, rather than
someone else's website.

On the face of it, this restriction may seem rather empty, because all
websites are publicly accessible by any reader, anywhere. So it hardly
makes any difference where a publicly accessible file happens to be
located. But I am sure that what Nature's legal advisers had in mind
was a way to ensure that the License cannot be used under the following
potentially very damaging construal of the self-archiving right:

Another vendor decides to re-sell the contents of Nature online. They set
up a website, and invite (or pay) all Nature authors to "self-archive"
their Nature articles therein. They do so, and soon the rival has a
duplicate Nature that they can sell, thereby undercutting the sales of
Nature itself, by re-selling its own product, and possibly ruining Nature.

It is for this reason that the Nature license specifies that the
self-archiving must be on the author's *own* institutional website, and
that that website must be non-commercial. (Otherwise Nature's rival
could, instead of paying authors a fee to "self-archive" on their site,
"employ" them to do so, offering them a free-lance "contract" so
they can call the rival's commercial website "their own.")

Human nature (and the urge to make easy profit from the hard work of
others) being what it is, I fully understand that Nature would be very
careful to word the Licensing agreement in such a way as to rule out
this potentially damaging outcome as a consequence of having taken
the inititiave to liberalize its copyright policy in the interests of
research and researchers.

But Nature n ews item about the License (not the License itself) has
introduced an ambiguous phrase that makes it seem as if this restriction
also applies to the author's own university:

    "['Their own'] does not mean open archival websites, such as those
    that host collections of articles by an institution's researchers"
    http://makeashorterlink.com/?K17821C03

If my interpretation is correct, then this phrase was not meant to be
a restriction on self-archiving at the author's own (non-commercial)
institution -- which will of course, by definition, be hosting collections
of articles by its own researchers! Rather, it was meant to rule out
commercial sites making a business of forming "collections" of (say,
Nature) articles by researchers from multiple institutions, so as to
re-sell them, competing with and undercutting Nature's own revenue base,
and using Nature's own liberal License as their legal basis for doing so!

If my interpretation is correct, I think it would be very helpful if
this were very explicitly clarified, so that Nature authors do not
construe this as meaning they can't self-archive their Nature papers in
their own institution's Eprint Archive, designed to contain its own
institutional research output (only, and not for sale, but only for
open access).

As I am rather confident that my interpretation is right, I want to take
this opportunity to express my gratitude to you and Nature for taking
this initiative and providing this new policy as a model for other
journals to emulate. You have clearly taken to heart the important
and timely debate that has been hosted in Nature's own pages (real
and virtual) concerning "Future e-access to the primary literature"
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/ and this outcome is --
and will be rembered to be -- a historic one.

Best wishes,

Stevan Harnad

On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Michael Eisen wrote:

> >sh> Mike, where is this quote from? (Could you simply have gotten a piece
> >sh> of incorrect advice from an uninformed person in Nature's Permissions
> >sh> Department?)
>
> Its from "Nature in 2003" - an editorial that appeared in the January 2nd
> issue of Nature.
> http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v421/n6918/full/421001a_fs.html
>
> "Ownership of copyright remains with the authors. Provided that, when
> reproducing their contribution or extracts from it, the authors acknowledge
> the original publication in Nature or other NPG journal, they may reproduce
> the paper in any printed volume of which they are the authors. Furthermore,
> they and any academic institution where they work at the time may reproduce
> the paper without payment for the purpose of course teaching.
>
> "Authors may also post a copy of their paper on their own website once the
> printed edition has been published, provided that they also provide a link
> from the contribution to Nature's website. "Their own" refers to any site
> devoted to them, whether owned by them or by a not-for-profit employer.
> However, it does not mean open archival websites, such as those that host
> collections of articles by an institution's researchers, which would amount
> to a breach of our licence.
>
> "This policy is being applied retrospectively. Hundreds of thousands of
> scientists are authors of papers covered by copyright agreements that are
> still in force, and we cannot renegotiate every agreement. But we are happy
> to extend to all past authors the rights laid out in the new licence
> agreements: to re-use the papers in any printed volume of which they are an
> author; to post a PDF copy on their own (not-for-profit) website; to copy
> (and for their institutions to copy) their papers for use in coursework
> teaching; and to re-use figures and tables. For the exact terms and
> conditions, please see a copy of the licence agreement at
> http://npg.nature.com/authornews."

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stevan Harnad" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "September 1998 American Scientist Forum"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: <[log in to unmask]>; "Philip Campbell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 5:14 PM
> Subject: [Manifesto] Re: Nature's vs. Science's Embargo Policy
>
> > I would like to ask Mike Eisen for the source of his quote from Nature
> > in: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2563.html
> >
> > The reason I ask is this:
> > On Fri, 10 Jan 2003
> > in http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2572.html
> > Linda Humphreys <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > > We asked Nature for clarification of this point last June, reply below.
> > >
> > > From: Hazel Grainger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 4:02 PM
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Author Licence
> > >
> > > I just wanted to clarify one point made on your Author Licence FAQ
> > > web page. Point 1 states:
> > >
> > >     "The licence says I may post the PDF on my "own" web site. What does
> > >     'own' mean? It means a personal site, or portion of a site, either
> > >     owned by you or at your institution (provided this institution is
> > >     not for profit)....."
> > >
> > > Does this include an Institution-based e-print server at a
> > > University (a not-for-profit service)?
> > >
> > > Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 17:55:59 +0100
> > > From: Permissions <[log in to unmask]>
> > >
> > > Dear Hazel,
> > >
> > > Yes, this includes an institution-based e-print server at your
> university.
> > >
> > > Yours sincerely,
> > >
> > > Marie Williams
> > > Nature Permissions Officer
> > > The Macmillan Building
> > > 4-6 Crinan Street
> > > London N1 9XW
> > > Tel:  44 (0)207 833 4000
> > > Fax: 44 (0)207 843 4596
> > > [log in to unmask]
> > > http://www.nature.com/nature
> >
> > Turning to the Nature License, I find the following, consitent with the
> > above:
> >
> >     [From Nature License]
> >     The Authors retain the following non-exclusive rights:
> >
> >     To post a copy of the Contribution on the Authors' own web site after
> >     publication of the printed edition of the Journal, provided that they
> >     also give a hyperlink from the Contribution to the Journal's web site.
> > http://npg.nature.com/pdf/05_news.pdf
> >
> > The Nature FAQ says the following, likewise conistent with the above:
> >
> >    [From Nature License FAQ]
> >    The licence says I may post the PDF on my "own" web site. What does
> >    "own" mean?
> >
> >    It means a personal site, or portion of a site, either owned
> >    by you or at your institution (provided this institution is
> >    not-for-profit), devoted to you and your work. If in doubt, please
> >    contact [log in to unmask]
> >
> http://npg.nature.com/npg/servlet/Content?data=xml/05_faq.xml&style=xml/05_f
> aq.xsl
> >
> > So all of this seems to agree with the reply to Hazel's inquiry and the
> > reply from nature's permissions department.
> >
> > But on Thu, 9 Jan 2003 Michael Eisen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > >me> [Nature] explicitly preclude placing the papers in an archive!
> > >
> > >   "Authors may also post a copy of their paper on their own website
> > >   once the printed edition has been published, provided that they also
> > >   provide a link from the contribution to Nature's website. 'Their
> > >   own' refers to any site devoted to them, whether owned by them
> > >   or by a not-for-profit employer. However, it does not mean open
> > >   archival websites, such as those that host collections of articles
> > >   by an institution's researchers, which would amount to a breach of
> > >   our licence."
> >
> > Mike, where is this quote from? (Could you simply have gotten a piece
> > of incorrect advice from an uninformed person in Nature's Permissions
> > Department?)
> >
> > Cheers, Stevan
>